Return to homeLebanon lies in the eastern Mediterranean and
covers about 4,033 square miles, smaller than Connecticut. From a
narrow coastal strip, the land rises steeply to the Mount Lebanon
range whose highest peak reaches 10,131 feet.
(AP, 6/19/05)
Some Lebanese claim descent from the ancient Phoenicians. But
Assyrians, Persians, Romans, Byzantines, Crusaders, Mamelukes, Arabs
and Ottoman Turks all ruled what is now Lebanon. The Lebanese lived
under French rule after World War I, then gained independence in
1943. Christians dominated, but Muslim demands for reform helped
trigger the 1975-90 civil war that killed 150,000. A 1989
Arab-brokered agreement ended the war. Israel withdrew in 2000.
Syrian troops who came in near the start of the civil war finished
their pullout on April 26, 2005.
(AP, 6/19/05)
Lebanon has few natural resources so, for centuries, the people have
specialized in commerce. Before the civil war, Lebanon was the
commercial center of the Middle East and its currency was one of the
strongest in the region. It was also a major tourist center. The war
gutted the economy and destroyed much of the infrastructure. Postwar
reconstruction rebuilt central Beirut but plunged the country into
$30 billion in debt.
(AP, 6/19/05) c5,000BC
Archeologists at Byblos found at least 12 layers of civilizations
that dated back 7,000 years.
(SFEC, 4/13/97, p.T9)

2291BC-2254BC Naram-Sin ruled Akkad. He defeated a
rebel coalition in Sumer and re-established Akkadian power. He
re-conquered Syria, Lebanon, and the Taurus mountains, destroying
Aleppo and Mari in the process. During his reign the Gutians
sacked the city of Agade and eventually destroyed all of Sumer
(southern Iraq). During his reign Naram-Sin campaigned against the
region of Magan (Oman).
(http://tinyurl.com/ctv5f)

900BC-700BC In 2008 archeologists found
pottery in Tyre, Lebanon, that was used by Phoenicians during this
period.
(AP, 11/12/08)

220AD At Baalbeck in the Bekaa
Valley the Romans constructed an incomplete acropolis that contained
a Temple of Jupiter and a Temple of Bacchus.
(SFEC, 4/13/97, p.T9)

410 St. Maroun, founder of the
Maronite Christians, died in Cyrrhus region of Syria. The Maronite
movement reached Lebanon when St Maroun's first disciple Abraham of
Cyrrhus, who was called the Apostle of Lebanon, realized that
paganism was thriving in Lebanon, so he set out to convert the
pagans to Christians by introducing them to the way of St Maroun.
(http://www.maroun.org/saint/maroun/life/)

632-661 The Rashidun Caliphate, also known as the
Rightly Guided Caliphate, comprising the first four caliphs in
Islam's history, was founded after Muhammad's death. At its height,
the Caliphate extended from the Arabian Peninsula, to the Levant,
Caucasus and North Africa in the west, to the Iranian highlands and
Central Asia in the east. It was the one of the largest empires in
history up until that time.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rashidun_Caliphate)

1857 In Lebanon the modern wine
industry began when a group of Jesuit monks founded Chateau Ksara in
the Bekaa Valley.
(SFC, 1/11/08, p.F4)

1860 May 22, In Lebanon a small
group of Maronites fired on a group of Druzes at the entrance to
Beirut, killing one and wounding two. This sparked off a torrent of
violence which swept through Lebanon.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1860_Lebanon_conflict)

1860 Jul, Fighting in Lebanon
spilled over into Damascus. With the connivance of the military
authorities and Turkish soldiers, Muslim fanatics organized pogroms
which lasted three days (July 9-11). 25,000 Christians were killed
including the American and Dutch consuls. Churches and missionary
schools were set on fire. Many Christians were saved through the
intervention of the Muslim Algerian exile Abd al-Qadir and his
soldiers.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1860_Lebanon_conflict)

1880 Jordan, Lebanon and
Palestine were part of Syria under Ottoman rule.
(Econ, 5/27/06, p.80)

1887 A Lebanese villager
discovered a well near Sidon that led to two underground chambers,
which turned out to be a royal tomb containing 18 marble sarcophagi
dating back the 5th century BC. The largest was believed to contain
the remains of Alexander the Great. Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II
ordered them shipped to Istanbul.
(Econ, 5/19/12, p.89)

1912 Feb 24, Italy bombed
Beirut in the first act of war against the Ottoman Empire.
(HN, 2/24/98)

1916 May 19, The
Sykes-Picot Agreement was a secret understanding between the
governments of Britain and France defining their respective spheres
of post-World War I influence and control in the Middle East. The
boundaries of this agreement still remains in much of the common
border between Syria and Iraq. Britain and France carved up the
Levant into an assortment of monarchies, mandates and emirates. The
agreement enshrined Anglo-French imperialist ambitions at the end of
WW II. Syria and Lebanon were put into the French orbit, while
Britain claimed Jordan, Iraq, the Gulf states and the Palestinian
Mandate. Sir Mark Sykes (d.1919 at age 39) and Francois Picot made
the deal.
(WSJ, 2/27/00,
p.A17)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sykes-Picot_Agreement)

1920 The French carved Lebanon
out of Syria to create a predominantly Christian country. A
constitution was drawn up that required the president to be a
Maronite Christian, the prime minister a Sunni Muslim, and the
speaker of parliament a Shiite.
(SFC, 9/28/98, p.A10)

1920 The French and British
signed water treaties to tap the Wazzani for water needs in Lebanon,
regardless of effects on neighbors.
(SFC, 9/19/02, p.A12)

1930 In Lebanon the Musar
vineyard was founded.
(SFC, 1/11/08, p.F4)

1932 Edmund Safra (d.1999) was
born to a banking family in Beirut. The Safras left for Brazil in
1948.
(SFC, 12/4/99, p.A15)

1932 Lebanon counted the number
of adherents to various religions in order to share out power under
a system known as confessionalism. As of 2008 this was Lebanon’s
last census.
(Econ, 12/22/07, p.99)

1936 Pierre Gemayel founded the
Phalange Party to exert Christian power in Lebanon. It dominated
Christian politics for decades after Lebanon's independence from
France in 1943.
(AP, 11/21/06)

1941 Nov 26, Free French
General Georges Catroux was placed in control of Syria and Lebanon.
Shortly after taking up this post, Catroux recognized the
independence of Syria and Lebanon in the name of the Free French
movement.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syria-Lebanon_campaign)

1943 Sep 21, Bishara al-Khuri
(1890-1964) was elected the first president of modern-day Lebanon.
Lebanon did not become fully independent from French rule until
1946. Khuri had previously been Secretary-General of Mount Lebanon
(a political predecessor to modern Lebanon administered by the
French) as well as its Prime Minister on several separate occasions.
The French held elections to fulfill their earlier promises of
Lebanese independence. The new government promptly passed
legislation to remove French influences in the constitution.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bechara_El_Khoury)

1943 Nov 11, The French voiced
their dissent by arresting Bishara al-Khuri and most of the
government. An insurrection, British diplomatic efforts and
one more crisis in 1945 finally left the government restored.
(HNQ, 12/24/00)

1943 Lebanon adopted
power-sharing agreement after the country won its independence from
France. Aimed at maintaining a balance between the 18 religious
communities, the agreement called for the president to be a Maronite
Christian, the prime minister to be Sunni Muslim and parliament
speaker a Shiite.
(AFP, 5/6/12)

1945 Oct 20, Egypt, Syria, Iraq
and Lebanon formed the Arab League to present a unified front
against the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine.
(HN, 10/20/98)

1946 British and French troops
withdrew by the end of 1946 by which time Lebanon had become a
member of the United Nations.
(HNQ, 12/24/00)

1948 May 15, Hours after
declaring its independence, the new state of Israel was attacked by
Transjordan, Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon. The first president of
the State of Israel, Chaim Weizmann, took office with the founding
of the nation. David Ben-Gurion was Israel’s first prime minister.
Weizmann, born in Russia in 1874, taught chemistry in England and as
a leading Zionist influenced Britain’s Balfour Declaration of 1917
favoring a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Weizmann settled in
Palestine in 1934 and served as president of Israel from 1948 until
his death in 1952.
(AP, 5/15/97)(HNQ, 6/19/99)

1948 Bishara al-Khuri managed
to get the national legislature to amend the constitution, to allow
him to run for a second term.
(HNQ, 12/24/00)

1951 In Lebanon Kefraya opened
its first vineyard
(SFC, 1/11/08, p.F4)

1952 Sep, Alleged corruption
and growing opposition to the Khuri government led to a general
strike that forced his resignation. Khuri was succeeded by Camille
Chamoun.
(HNQ, 12/24/00)

1954 Beirut Int’l. Airport
opened. In 1998 a new $460 million airport was under construction.
(WSJ, 4/6/98, p.A1)

1958 Jul 15, President
Eisenhower ordered 5,000 U.S. Marines to Lebanon, at the request of
that country's president, Camille Chamoun, in the face of a
perceived threat by Muslim rebels; to help end a short-lived civil
war.
(SFEC, 4/13/97, p.T8)(AP, 7/15/98)(HN, 7/15/98)

1958 Oct 25, The last U.S.
troops left Beirut
(HN, 10/25/98)

1960 St. John Philby died in
Beirut from a heart attack. He had orchestrated the Aramco oil deal
in Saudi Arabia.
(WSJ, 3/8/99, p.A16)

1968 Dec 28, Israel attacked
the Beirut Int’l. Airport, destroying 13 civilian planes. This was
in response to an attack on an Israeli airliner in Athens by the
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Israeli_raid_on_Lebanon)

1969 Nov 3, The Arab League
brokered a deal in Cairo that gave the PLO in Lebanon refugee camps
freedom of government interference. They reached an agreement that
effectively endorsed PLO freedom of action in Lebanon to recruit,
arm, train, and employ fighters against Israel. The Lebanese Army
protected their bases and supply lines.
(www.palestinefacts.org/pf_1967to1991_lebanon_cairo_1969.php)(Econ,
6/2/07, p.46)

1970 Sep 15, The Jordanian army
attacked Palestinian positions. Within days PLO officials and
commandos were expelled from Jordan and forced to move to Lebanon.
(www.nmhschool.org/tthornton/mehistorydatabase/arabisraeliwars.php)(SFC,
2/8/99, p.A6)

1971 Fatah, the armed faction
of the Palestine Liberation Organization, arrived in Lebanon
following its ouster from Jordan after losing the battles of "Black
September".
(SFC, 9/28/98, p.A10)(Econ, 1/24/15, p.42)

1972 May 30, Three militants of
the Japanese Red Army staged a machine-gun and hand-grenade attack
at the Lod Airport in Israel. 24 people were killed and a 100
injured. The terrorists found refuge in Lebanon until 1997 when they
were arrested. Kozo Okamoto served 13 years of a life sentence in
Israel. In 2000 Lebanon granted asylum to Kozo Okamoto. 4 other
Japanese Red Army members were deported to Japan.
(SFC, 2/19/96, p.A8)(SFC, 3/18/00, p.A3)

1973 Jul 20, The Japanese Red
Army and Lebanese guerrillas hijacked a Japan Airlines plane over
the Netherlands. The passengers and crew were released in Libya
where the hijackers blew up the plane.
(SFC, 11/9/00,
p.C2)(www.cdi.org/friendlyversion/printversion.cfm?documentID=1771)

1975 Apr 13, In Lebanon the
right-wing Christian Falange (Phalange) opened fire on a bus packed
with Palestinians in a low-income neighborhood after a drive-by
attack earlier in the day on a nearby church. The attacks killed 27
Palestinians and three Lebanese Christians. The ambush sparked a
civil war that lasted to 1990. The attack was made to avenge an
attempted assassination on Bashir Gemayel.
(SFEC, 4/13/97, p.T5)(AP, 4/12/05)(Econ,
11/25/06, p.46)

1975 The (1999) film “West
Beirut” was directed by Ziad Doueiri. It followed a group of
teenagers in wartime Beirut in 1975.
(SFC, 11/1/99, p.E3)

1975 Imam Moussa al-Sadr
founded Amal, the first major militia and political force for
Lebanon's Shiites. They had historically been under the thumb of
Christians and Sunnis.
(AP, 3/2/11)

1975 Maarouf Saad (d.2002),
head of the Independent Nasserite Popular Organization, was
assassinated. Mustafa Maarouf Saad (24), his son, took over as
leader.
(SFC, 8/3/02, p.A18)

1975-1991 An estimated 17,000 Lebanese were
reported missing during the civil war. In 2000 a government
commission ended a 7-month investigation and said the missing were
probably all dead. The civil war allowed an illicit drug trade to
flourish in the Bekaa Valley.
(SFC, 9/29/98, p.A9)(SFC, 7/27/00, p.C16)

1976 Jan 22, A PLO bank robbery
in Beirut netted a world record $20-50 million.
(www.lebaneseforces.com/blastfromthepast001.asp)

1976 Jun 16, U.S. Ambassador
Francis E. Meloy, Jr. (b.1917) was murdered along with his associate
Robert Waring, an American economic advisor. The two had been en
route to a meeting with Lebanese president-elect Elias Sarkis when
they were abducted by Muslim guerillas in Beirut.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_E._Meloy,_Jr.)

1976 Nov 15, A Syrian peace
force took control of Beirut, Lebanon. The Arab League gave Syria a
peacekeeping mandate.
(HN, 11/15/98)(SFC, 4/27/05, p.A8)

1976 Nov 21, Syrian army
completed its final phase of occupation of Lebanon.
(AP, 11/21/02)

1976-1991 There was a 15 year civil war and there
was no government and no army to control lawless groups.
(SFC, 2/19/96, p.A8)

1977 Mar 16, In Lebanon Kamal
Jumblatt (60) was killed. He was the leader of Lebanon’s Druze
community, a member of the Lebanese Parliament and a
Socialist-nationalist supporter of Palestinians. Jumblatt was
assassinated by the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, which he had
legalized as interior minister some years earlier.
(Econ, 11/28/09,
p.49)(http://tinyurl.com/yzgycku)

1978 Mar 11, 34 Israelis were
killed as Palestinian guerrillas went on a rampage on the Tel
Aviv-Haifa highway. Palestinian guerrillas based in Lebanon attacked
a bus near Tel Aviv and killed over 35 people.
(AP, 3/11/98)(SFC, 5/24/00, p.A15)

1978 Mar 19, Israeli army took
control of almost all of Lebanon south of Litani River.
(AP, 3/19/03)
1978 Mar 19, The UN Security
Council adopted Resolution 425 demanding that Israel withdraw from
Lebanon.
(SFC, 5/24/00, p.A15)

1978 Mar 23, UNIFIL forces
arrived in Lebanon setting up headquarters in Naqoura. In response
to Israel’s invasion, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 425
and Resolution 426 calling for the withdrawal of Israeli forces from
Lebanon. The UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) was created to
enforce this mandate, and restore peace and sovereignty to Lebanon.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978_South_Lebanon_conflict)

1978 Jun 13, Israelis withdrew
the last of their invading forces from Lebanon.
(HN, 6/13/98)

1978 Oct 2, Syrian troops
pounded Christian districts of Beirut with heavy artillery and
rocket fire early today, and right-wing officials said Lebanese
militias were fighting back with every weapon they had.
(http://archive.gulfnews.com/indepth/30thyear/onthisday/10157571.html)

1978 Ghassan Tueni (1926-2012,
Lebanon’s UN ambassador (1977-1982), pushed for the adoption of UN
Security Council Resolution 425, which called for the withdrawal of
Israeli troops from Lebanon.
(AFP, 6/8/12)

1979 Jan 22, Abu Hassan (Ali
Hassan Salameh), the alleged planner of the 1972 Munich raid, was
killed by a bomb in Beirut. He was the chief of operations for the
Black September militant Palestinian group. Erica Chambers, a
British passport holder, recruited by Mossad, triggered the huge car
bomb.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Hassan_Salameh)(HN,1/22/99)(Econ,
6/7/14, p.88)

1980 Apr 18, In Lebanon three
UN peacekeepers were kidnapped. Derek Smallhorne and Thomas Barrett
of Ireland were subsequently murdered and John O’Mahony seriously
wounded. In 2014 a Mahmoud Bazzi (71), a suspect in the killings,
agreed to return to Lebanon from Detroit, where he was living
without proper documentation.
(SFC, 8/12/14,
p.A4)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At_Tiri_Incident)

1980 Oct 25, Shafik Wazzan (d.
1999 at 74) became a compromise prime minister after the country had
gone 137 days without a government.
(SFC, 7/9/99, p.D6)

1981 Apr 2, Heavy battle took
place between Christian militia and Syrian army in East Lebanon.
Casualties and injuries were in the hundreds.
(www.2la.org/lebanon/ee/terrorlb.htm)

1982 Jun 4, Israel attacked
targets in south Lebanon one day after the attempted assassination
of the Israeli ambassador in London.
(www.adl.org/israel/advocacy/glossary/lebanon_war.asp)

1982 Jun 6, Israeli Defense
Minister Ariel Sharon ordered his forces to invade southern Lebanon
to drive Palestine Liberation Organization fighters out of the
country. Israeli Gen. Rafael Eitan (d.2004) had convinced defense
minister Ariel Sharon to invade southern Lebanon to clean out the
PLO bases there. A 70-day siege by 30,000 Israeli troops left up to
14,000 Lebanese and Palestinian civilians dead. Islamic radicals,
including Naim Qassem, formed Hezbollah (Hizbullah, i.e. Party of
God) in response to Israel’s attack. The Israelis withdrew in June
1985. Hezbollah was formed with Iranian help as a radical offshoot
of Amal, a Shiite Muslim movement. In 2005 Naim Qassem authored
“Hizbullah: The Story from Within.”
(WSJ, 11/17/95, p.A-10)(SFC, 4/17/96, p.A-10)(AP,
6/6/97)(SFC, 6/15/98, p.A10)(SFC, 5/24/00, p.A15)(Econ, 12/4/04,
p.88)(Econ, 4/23/05, p.79)

1982 Jul 4, Four Iranians,
charge d'affaires Mohsen Musavi, diplomat Ahmad Motovasselian,
photographer Kazem Akhavan and driver Mohammad Taqi Rastgar
Moghaddam, were seized at a Lebanese Forces checkpoint north of
Beirut. In 2006 Samir Geagea, former head of the disbanded Lebanese
Forces, said that they were killed by Christian militiamen.
(AP, 5/19/06)

1982 Jul 6, President Ronald
Reagan agreed to contribute U.S. troops to the peacekeeping unit in
Beirut.
(HN, 7/6/98)

1982 Aug 12, Israel staged
heavy bombardment of Beirut. The UN Security council expressed its
most serious concern about continued military activities in Lebanon,
particularly in and around Beirut.
(www.pierretristam.com/Bobst/Archives/CN072106.htm)(http://tinyurl.com/3ddtqm)

1982 Aug 21, A group of
Palestinian guerrillas left Lebanon by ship under an evacuation plan
mediated by the United States.
(AP, 8/21/02)

1982 Aug 23, Bashir Gemayel was
elected as Lebanon's President. His inauguration was scheduled for
23 September.
(http://tinyurl.com/2nba4o)

1982 Aug 24, Some 800 US
Marines landed in Beirut, Lebanon, as part of a joint US-French
peacekeeping force.
(www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/usmnf.htm)

1982 Sep 16-1982 Sep 18, The
massacre of some 1,500 Palestinian men, women and children by
Lebanese Christian militiamen began in west Beirut's Sabra and
Chatilla (Shatilla) refugee camps. Elie Hobeika (d.2002), Christian
militia chieftain, led the massacre of Palestinian refugees in the
camps. Israel’s defense minister, Ariel Sharon, was held responsible
and lost his top post. The massacre triggered peace rallies in
Israel with some 400,000 demonstrating in Tel Aviv. In 2001
survivors lodged a complaint in Belgium against Sharon.
(AP, 9/16/97)(SFC, 10/10/98, p.A8)(SFC, 5/24/00,
p.A15)(SFC, 6/19/01, p.A8)(SFC, 1/25/02, p.A10)(WSJ, 8/1/06, p.A10)

1982 Sep 24, US, Italian and
French peacekeeping troops began arriving in Lebanon. Some 400,000
Israelis gathered at the first of many demonstrations to protest the
Lebanon War.
(www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/usmnf.htm)(http://tinyurl.com/2o8vkl)

1982 The poet Khalil Hawi
committed suicide. His most celebrated poem was titled “The Bridge.”
It offered a hopeful vision for the Arab people, but the author was
later embarrassed by the poem’s optimism.
(WSJ, 2/20/98, p.A16)
1982 Jacobo Timerman (d.1999 at
76) published "The Longest War: Israel in Lebanon."
(SFC, 11/12/99, p.D6)
1982 In 2005 Karin Linstad, a
leading Norwegian pro-Palestinian activist, said she infiltrated the
Israeli intelligence agency Mossad as a double agent in the 1980s.
The Oslo newspaper Aftenposten said Mossad had been skeptical of
Linstad's offer to act as an agent but was drawn in by her claims of
tight contact with leading Palestinians. The newspaper, without
citing sources, said she provided information about Palestinians in
Beirut, Lebanon, ahead of Israel's 1982 invasion.
(AP, 10/6/05)

1983 Apr 18, At the US Embassy
in Beirut, Lebanon, 63 people, including 17 Americans, were killed
by a suicide bomber. In 1996 sixteen Islamic militants were ordered
to stand trial by a military court in Lebanon. Hezbollah leader Imad
Mughniyah was suspected of involvement. CIA agent Robert Ames was
among those killed. In 2014 Kai Bird authored “The Good Spy: The
Life and Death of Robert Ames.”
(WSJ, 3/26/96, p.A-1)(WSJ, 9/19/01, p.A14)(WSJ,
8/3/06, p.A4)(AP, 4/18/08)(Econ, 6/7/14, p.87)

1983 Aug 28, Israel’s PM Begin,
reportedly despondent over the death of his wife and the rising
casualty toll of Israeli troops in Lebanon, announced his intention
to resign as fighting continued in Lebanon with no apparent end in
sight.
(www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3284684,00.html)(AP, 8/28/08)

1983 Oct 15, One US marine was
killed and another wounded when Marine positions at Beirut
International Airport came under sniper fire from neighboring Shiite
Moslem quarters.
(http://tinyurl.com/2oux37)

1983 Oct 23, A truck filled
with explosives, driven by a Moslem suicide terrorist, crashed into
the U.S. Marine barracks near the Beirut International Airport in
Lebanon. The bomb killed 241 Marines and sailors and injured 80.
Almost simultaneously, a similar incident occurred at French
military headquarters, where 58 died and 15 were injured. Hezbollah
leader Imad Mughniyah was suspected of involvement. In 2007 under a
law allowing foreign governments to be sued in US courts, US federal
judge Royce Lamberth ordered Iran to pay $2.65 billion to victims'
families.
(WSJ, 8/1/96/p.B1)(AP, 10/23/97)(WSJ, 9/19/01,
p.A14)(AFP, 7/6/12)

1983 Dec 4, US jet fighters
struck Syrian anti-aircraft positions in Lebanon in retaliation for
Syrian-backed attacks on the US peacekeeping force. The Syrian
anti-air defense shut down two American airplanes and a pilot was
captured. The positions of the Marines at the Beirut International
Airport were bombarded. Eight Marines were killed.
(http://tinyurl.com/35ek6z)(SFC, 4/27/05, p.A8)

1984 Feb 26, Last US marines in
multinational peace-keeping force in Lebanon left Beirut.
(www.history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=4791)

1984 Mar 12, Lebanese President
Gemayel opened the second meeting in five years calling for the end
to nine-years of war.
(HN, 3/12/98)

1984 Mar 16, William Buckley,
the CIA station chief in Beirut, was kidnapped by gunmen; he died in
captivity.
(AP, 3/16/97)

1984 Sep 20, A suicide car
bomber attacked the US Embassy annex in north Beirut. 24 people were
killed including 2 US soldiers.
(AP, 9/20/97)(SFC, 9/12/01,
p.A7)(http://beirut.usembassy.gov/lebanon/beirut_memorial.html)

1985 Jan 1, Mustafa Maarouf
Saad (d.2002), Lebanese militia leader, lost his sight in a car
explosion in front of his house in Sidon. His daughter (13) was
killed and his wife lost one eye.
(SFC, 8/3/02, p.A18)

1985 Jan, Israel pulled back to
a security zone in southern Lebanon to protect its border.
(SFC, 5/24/00, p.A15)

1985 Jan, Rev. Lawrence Martin
Jenco (1935-1996), the director of Catholic Relief Services, was
kidnapped by the Islamic Jihad in Beirut. He was freed in July 1986
after negotiations involving the Reagan administration, Shiite
radicals and Anglican envoy Terry White. In 1995 he wrote “Bound To
Forgive- the Pilgrimage to Reconciliation of a Beirut Hostage.” He
shared captivity with Terry Anderson, AP correspondent, David
Jacobsen, administrator of Beirut’s American Univ., and Thomas
Sutherland, the Univ.'s acting dean of agriculture.
(SFC, 7/20/96, p.A19)(SFC, 8/4/01, p.A3)

1985 Feb 14, Cable News Network
reporter Jeremy Levin, who was being held hostage by extremists in
Lebanon, was freed.
(AP, 2/14/98)

1985 Mar 8, In Lebanon a
massive car bomb killed 80 people. It targeted Grand Ayatollah
Sayyed Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah, but he escaped injury. Reporter
Bob Woodward later wrote that CIA director William Casey, while
lying on his deathbed, admitted personal culpability in the attack,
which he suggests was carried out with funding from Saudi Arabia.
(Econ, 7/10/10,
p.48)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1985_Beirut_car_bombing)

1985 Mar 16, Terry Anderson,
chief Middle East correspondent for The Associated Press, was
abducted in Beirut; he was released in December 1991.
(AP, 3/16/97) (HN, 3/16/98)

1985 Mar 25, British journalist
Alec Collett (64) was abducted in Beirut as he covered Lebanon’s
civil war. His remains were found in 2009 in the eastern Bekaa
Valley. The following year a group belonging to Palestinian
guerrilla leader Abu Nidal said it killed him in retaliation for US
air raids on Libya.
(www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-3752719.html)(Reuters, 11/23/09)

1985 May 22, In Lebanon Michel
Seurat, a French history researcher, was abducted. In 1986 the
Islamic Jihad said he had been executed.
(AP, 3/5/00)(AP, 3/7/06)

1985 May 28, David Jacobsen,
director of the American University Hospital in Beirut, Lebanon, was
abducted by pro-Iranian kidnappers. He was freed 17 months later.
(AP, 5/28/97)

1985 Jun 9, American educator
Thomas Sutherland was kidnapped in Lebanon. He was released in
November 1991 along with fellow hostage Terry Waite.
(AP, 6/9/97)

1985 Jun 10, The Israeli army
pulled out of Lebanon after 1,099 days of occupation.
(HN, 6/10/98)

1985 Jun 14, The 17-day hijack
ordeal of TWA Flight 847 began as a pair of Lebanese Shiite Muslim
extremists seized the plane with 104 Americans shortly after takeoff
from Athens, Greece. The hijackers killed Petty Officer Robert Dean
Stethem and dumped his body on the tarmac in Beirut. In 2002
Stethem’s family was awarded $21.4 million in compensatory damages
from the US Treasury. In 1987 Mohammed Ali Hamadi was arrested at
the Frankfurt airport, when customs officials discovered liquid
explosives in his luggage. The Lebanese man was convicted and served
a life sentence in Germany for the 1985 hijacking of a TWA jetliner
and killing of a US Navy diver. In 2005 he returned to Lebanon after
being paroled in Germany.
(AP, 6/14/97)(HN, 6/14/98)(SSFC, 4/21/02,
p.A9)(AP, 12/20/05)

1985 Jun 30, 39 American
hostages from a hijacked TWA jetliner were freed in Beirut after
being held for 17 days.
(AP 6/30/97)

1985 Jun, Israel pulled back to
a security zone in southern Lebanon to protect its border.
(SFC, 5/24/00, p.A15)

1985 Oct 4, Islamic Jihad
issued a statement saying it had killed American hostage William
Buckley. Fellow hostage David Jacobsen, however, later said he
believed Buckley had died (in Lebanon) of torture injuries four
months earlier.
(AP, 10/4/97)

1985 Dec 28, A Syrian sponsored
peace agreement was signed in Damascus between warring Lebanese
Moslem and Christian leaders.
(www.lebanese-forces.org/lebanon/agreements/damascus85.htm)

1985 Israel established a 440
sq. mile security zone in southern Lebanon. The 9-mile wide zone was
abandoned by some 400,000 inhabitants and by 2000 only 100,000
remained.
(SFC, 4/18/96, p.a-14)(SFC, 3/10/00, p.A12)

1986 Mar 5, In Lebanon Islamic
Jihad issued a statement saying it had "executed" Michel Seurat, a
French history researcher, who had been abducted May 22, 1985. His
remains were found in 2006.
(AP, 3/5/00)(AP, 3/7/06)

1986 Mar 8, Four French
television crew members were abducted in west Beirut; a caller
claimed the Islamic Jihad was responsible. All four were eventually
released.
(AP, 3/8/98)

1986 Apr 17, The bodies of
American librarian Peter Kilburn and two Britons were found near
Beirut; the three hostages had been slain in apparent retaliation
for the U.S. raid on Libya.
(AP, 4/17/97)

1986 Jul 26, Kidnappers in
Lebanon released the Reverend Lawrence Martin Jenco, an American
hostage held for nearly 19 months.
(AP, 7/26/00)

1986 Sep. 9, Frank Reed,
director of a private school in Lebanon, was taken hostage; he was
released 44 months later.
(AP, 9/9/97)

1986 Sep 12, Joseph Cicippio,
the acting comptroller at the American University in Beirut, was
kidnapped; he was released in December 1991.
(AP, 9/12/97)

1986 Oct 16, Ron Arad, an
Israeli airman, was the navigator in a plane that was shot down
while bombing a Palestinian refugee camp in southern Lebanon. He was
reportedly handed over to a Lebanese Shiite group led by Mustafa
Dirani. In 2004 it was reported that Arad died in 1996, sometime
after he was handed by Lebanese fighters to their Iranian sponsors.
In 2008 a Hezbollah report said Arad had escaped from a holding cell
in 1988 and probably died while trying to make his way home through
difficult terrain.
(SFEC, 11/17/96, p.A14)(AP,
10/25/04)(http://tinyurl.com/yz3zza)(AP, 10/8/08)

1986 Oct 21, Pro-Iranian
kidnappers in Lebanon claimed to have abducted American Edward
Tracy. He was released in August 1991.
(AP, 10/21/97)

1986 Nov 2, Kidnappers in
Lebanon released American hospital administrator David Jacobsen
after holding him for 17 months.
(AP, 11/2/06)

1986 Nov 3, "Ash-Shiraa," a
pro-Syrian Lebanese magazine, broke the story of U.S. arms sales to
Iran, a revelation that escalated into the Iran-Contra affair.
(AP, 11/3/97)

1986 Nov 10, Camille Sontag and
Marcel Coudari, two Frenchmen who had been held hostage in Lebanon,
were released.
(AP, 11/10/06)

1986 Nov 13, President Reagan
publicly acknowledged that the US had sent "defensive weapons and
spare parts" to Iran in an attempt to improve relations, but denied
the shipments were part of a deal aimed at freeing hostages in
Lebanon.
(AP, 11/13/06)

1987 Jan 12, Anglican Church
envoy Terry Waite arrived in Lebanon on his latest mission to win
the release of Western hostages; however, Waite ended up being taken
captive himself.
(AP, 1/12/07)

1987 Jan 20, Anglican Church
envoy Terry Waite disappeared in Beirut, Lebanon, while attempting
to negotiate the release of Western hostages. He was freed in
November 1991.
(AP, 1/20/98)

1987 Jun 1, In Lebanon PM
Rachid Karami was killed by a remote controlled bomb that blew up
his helicopter off the Lebanese coast. In 1996 former Christian
faction leader Samir Geagea was charged for the murder. In 2005
lawmakers approved motions to pardon Geagea.
(SFC, 7/19/05,
p.A9)(www.tripoli-lebanon.com/rachid-karami.html)

1987 Jun 17, Charles Glass, a
journalist on leave from ABC News, was kidnapped in Lebanon. Glass
escaped his captors in August 1987.
(AP, 6/17/07)

1987 Jul 23, Hussein Hariri
(21), a Lebanese hijacker, commandeered an Air Afrique DC-10 flying
from Brazzaville, Republic of Congo, to Paris. He was captured
during a refueling stop in Geneva and was sentenced to life in
prison for killing a passenger and seriously wounding a flight
attendant. In 2004 he was released and deported to Lebanon.
(AP, 10/17/04)

1987 Aug 18, American
journalist Charles Glass escaped his kidnappers in Beirut after 62
days in captivity. Glass had been abducted June 17 with two Lebanese
who were released after a week.
(AP, 8/18/97)

1987 Sep. 5, Some four-dozen
people were killed in an Israeli air raid on targets near the
southern Lebanese port town of Sidon.
(AP, 9/5/97)

1987 Nov 14, A bomb hidden in a
box of chocolates exploded in the lobby of Beirut's American
University Hospital, killing seven people, including the woman who
was carrying it.
(AP, 11/14/97)

1987 Nov 27, French hostages
Jean-Louis Normandin and Roger Auque were freed by their pro-Iranian
captors in west Beirut, Lebanon.
(AP, 11/27/97)

1987 Dec 24, In Lebanon, the
kidnappers of Terry Anderson released a videotape in which The
Associated Press correspondent told his family he was in good
health, and said to President Reagan, "Surely by now you know what
must be done and how you can do it." Anderson was freed nearly four
years later.
(AP, 12/24/97)

1987 The Lebanese Free Forces,
a right-wing Christian militia, arranged to accept and store 15,800
barrels and 20 large containers of toxic chemicals from the Italian
firm Jelly Wax in exchange for cash. Later German, Canadian and
Belgium firms shipped in toxic chemicals for storage. By 1998 70% of
the country’s drinking water sources was contaminated.
(SFC, 9/30/98, p.A10)(SFC, 9/30/98, p.A10)

1987 Syria sent troops into
West Beirut to enforce a cease-fire.
(SFC, 4/27/05, p.A8)

1988 Jan 3, The Israeli Army
ordered nine Palestinian activists deported from West Beirut as part
of a controversial crackdown to stop the uprising in the occupied
territories. Israeli raids on Palestinian and Progressive Socialist
Party positions in the region of Saida make killed 21 persons and
wounded 11.
(AP, 1/3/98)(http://tinyurl.com/zz87m)

1988 Feb 17, Lt. Col. William
Higgins, an American officer serving with a United Nations truce
monitoring group, was kidnapped in southern Lebanon. He was later
slain by his captors.
(AP, 2/17/98)

1988 Feb 19, A group calling
itself the "Organization of the Oppressed on Earth" claimed
responsibility for the kidnapping in Lebanon of U.S. Marine Lt. Col.
William R. Higgins. Higgins was later slain by his captors.
(AP, 2/19/98)

1988 Oct 3, Lebanese kidnappers
released Indian educator Mithileshwar Singh, who'd been held captive
with three Americans for more than 20 months.
(AP, 10/3/98)

1988 Oct 4, Indian professor
Mithileshwar Singh, freed the day before by his Lebanese kidnappers,
said his captors had treated him well during his 20 months of
imprisonment, but acknowledged "there is no substitute for freedom."
(AP, 10/4/98)

1988 Oct 31, In Lebanon the
kidnappers of American hostage Terry Anderson released a videotape
in which The Associated Press correspondent accused the Reagan
administration of blocking his release.
(AP, 10/31/98)

1988 Dec 20, The International
Committee of the Red Cross suspended its operations in Lebanon after
receiving death threats.
(AP, 12/20/98)

1989 Mar 8, In Lebanon daily
artillery barrages between Christian and Syrian forces and their
militia allies began in Beirut; at least 930 people were killed
before a cease-fire took hold the following September.
(AP, 3/8/99)

1989 Jul 30, In Lebanon, the
pro-Iranian group Organization for the Oppressed on Earth threatened
to kill an American hostage, Marine Lt. Col. William R. Higgins,
unless Israel released Sheik Abdul-Karim Obeid, a cleric seized by
Israeli commandos.
(AP, 7/30/99)

1989 Jul 31, A pro-Iranian
group in Lebanon released a grisly videotape purportedly showing the
body of American hostage William R. Higgins dangling from a rope, a
day after his kidnappers threatened to kill him.
(AP, 7/31/99)

1989 Aug 1, The Revolutionary
Justice Organization, a pro-Iranian group in Lebanon which had
threatened to kill American hostage Joseph Cicippio, extended its
deadline a day after another group released a videotape showing a
body said to be that of hostage William R. Higgins.
(AP, 8/1/99)

1989 Aug 3, Shiite Muslim
kidnappers in Lebanon suspended their threat to execute another
American hostage, three days after the purported hanging of Lt. Col.
William R. Higgins.
(AP, 8/2/99)

1989 Oct 4, Fawaz Younis, a
Lebanese hijacker convicted of commandeering a Jordanian jetliner in
1985 with two Americans aboard, was sentenced in Washington to 30
years in prison.
(AP, 10/4/99)

1989 Oct 22, The Lebanese
parliament agreed on a power-sharing formula between Christians and
Muslims that ended civil war a year later.
(SFC, 5/24/00, p.A15)

1989 Nov 22, President Rene
Moawad of Lebanon was assassinated less than three weeks after
taking office.
(AP, 11/22/99)

1989 Rafik Hariri financed a
gathering of Lebanese politicians at the Saudi city of Taif to
hammer out a deal to disband militias and distribute power more
equitably. The Taif Agreement maintained sectarian divisions in
government and led to the end of the civil war. It stipulated that
Syria withdraw its troops to the border and leave within 2 years.
(SFC, 9/28/98, p.A10)(SFC, 4/4/02, p.A13)(Econ,
2/19/05, p.43)

1990 Jan 19, Elias Zayek,
leader of the Christian Phalange party of Lebanon was shot and
killed in Byblos. Samir Geagea, leader of the of the Lebanese Forces
militia, was later accused and convicted (5/20/96) of the murder.
(SFC, 5/21/96, p.A-11)

1990 Apr 10, Three European
hostages -- a French woman, a Belgian man and their two-year-old
daughter, who was born in captivity -- were released in Lebanon by
the Abu Nidal Palestinian guerrilla group following an appeal by
Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.
(AP, 4/10/00)

1990 Apr 30, Hostage Frank Reed
was released by his captives in Lebanon, the second American freed
in eight days.
(AP, 4/30/00)

1990 Aug 24, Irish hostage
Brian Keenan was released by his captors in Lebanon after being held
more than four years.
(AP, 8/24/00)

1990 Oct 13, In Lebanon, rebel
Christian General Michel Aoun ended his mutiny against the
government. Syrian forces defeated the army under Aoun. Jihad
Georges Eid (20) a soldier in the Lebanese army, was taken from
Lebanon by Syrian troops on the day of the last battle in the civil
war. For the next 20 plus years, more than 600 families, Lebanese
and Palestinian, Muslim and Christian, demanded authorities reveal
the fate of thousands of political prisoners believed to have
disappeared at the hands of Syrian troops.
(AP, 10/13/00)(SFC, 4/27/05, p.A8)(AFP, 10/13/11)

1990 Dec 24, In Lebanon Omar
Karami (1934-2014) began serving his first term as prime minister
and continued to May 15, 1992.
(AP,
1/1/15)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omar_Karami)

1990 The Lebanese constitution
was amended in accordance with the 1989 Taif Accord to end the
Christian’s majority status in Parliament.
(SFC, 6/2/00, p.A16)
1990 In Lebanon Al-Manar was
founded to give voice to Hezbollah the Shiites. In 1997 Al-Manar
Television received a broadcasting license from the Lebanese
government. In 2004 the US designated it as a terrorist entity.
(WSJ, 7/28/06, p.A1)

1991 Jul 18, Shiite Muslim
kidnappers in Lebanon demanded the release of two Lebanese brothers
being held in Germany, warning there could be “grave consequences.”
(AP, 7/18/01)

1991 Aug 8, Lebanese kidnappers
freed British TV producer John McCarthy, held hostage for more than
five years; however, a rival group abducted Frenchman Jerome
Leyraud, threatening to kill him if any more hostages were released
Leyraud was freed three days later.
(AP, 8/8/01)

1991 Aug 10, The Revolutionary
Justice Organization, one of the groups holding hostages in Lebanon,
announced it would release an American within 72 hours. The next
day, Edward Tracy was freed.
(AP, 8/10/01)

1991 Aug 11, Shiite Muslim
kidnappers in Lebanon released two Western captives: Edward Tracy,
an American held nearly five years, and Jerome Leyraud, a Frenchman
who had been abducted by a rival group three days earlier.
(AP, 8/11/97)

1991 Aug 12, A letter from
Lebanese kidnappers was made public; it offered to trade the release
of Western hostages for the freedom of “all detainees” worldwide.
(AP, 8/12/01)

1991 Sep 11, In the Middle East
hopes grew for the release of Western hostages in Lebanon after
Israel freed 51 prisoners.
(AP, 9/11/01)

1991 Sep 24, Kidnappers in
Lebanon freed British hostage Jack Mann after holding him captive
for more than two years.
(AP, 9/24/97)

1991 Oct 6, Cable News Network
obtained and aired a videotape made in Beirut, Lebanon, of American
hostage Terry Anderson, who quoted his captors as saying they would
have “very good news.”
(AP, 10/6/01)

1991 Oct 21, American hostage
Jesse Turner was freed by his kidnappers in Lebanon after nearly
five years in captivity.
(AP, 10/21/97)

1991 Nov 18, Shiite Muslim
kidnappers in Lebanon freed Anglican Church envoy Terry Waite and
Thomas Sutherland, the American dean of agriculture at the American
University of Beirut.
(AP, 11/18/01)

1991 Dec 2, American hostage
Joseph Cicippio, held captive in Lebanon for more than five years,
was released.
(AP, 12/2/97)

1991 Dec 3, Radicals in Lebanon
released American hostage Alann Steen, who had been held captive
nearly five years.
(AP, 12/3/97)

1991 Dec 4, Associated Press
correspondent Terry Anderson, the longest held of Western hostages
in Lebanon, was released after nearly seven years in captivity. The
last American hostages in Lebanon were released.
(TMC, 1994, p.1991)(SFC, 9/26/96, p.A3)(AP,
12/4/97)(HN, 12/4/01)

1991 Dec 22, The body of Lt.
Col. William R. Higgins, an American hostage murdered by his
captors, was found dumped along a highway in Lebanon.
(AP, 12/22/97)

1991 Dec 30, The remains of two
American hostages slain in Lebanon, William Buckley and Marine Col.
William R. Higgins, arrived in the United States for burial.
(AP, 12/30/01)

1991 In Lebanon Pres. Hrawi
signed the “Treaty of Brotherhood, Cooperation and Coordination”
with Syrian Pres. Hafez Assad. It formalized the intervention of
Syria.
(SFC, 6/2/00, p.A16)(SFC, 4/27/05, p.A8)

1991 The civil war in Lebanon
ended.
(SFC, 9/28/98, p.A8)

1992 Feb 16, Israeli
helicopters attacked a convoy in Sidon, Lebanon, killing Sheik Abbas
Musawi, leader of the pro-Iranian group Hezbollah. Sheik Hassan
Nasrallah (b.1960) took over Hezbollah after the Israeli
assassination of Sheik Abbas Musawi. He has led the group since,
controlling its operational activities.
(AP, 2/16/02)(AP, 6/3/06)

1992 Jun 16, Two German relief
workers, the last of Western hostages held in Lebanon, were
released.
(AP, 6/17/97)

1992 Jul 23, US Secretary of
State James A. Baker III, touring the Middle East, made a secret
visit to Lebanon.
(AP, 7/23/02)

1992 Dec 13, An Israeli border
guard was kidnapped near Tel Aviv and later killed by the Hamas
fundamentalist organization. The slaying prompted Israel to expel
hundreds of Palestinians, sending them into Lebanese territory.
(AP, 12/13/97)

1992 Dec 19, More than 400
suspected Muslim fundamentalists deported by Israel were confined to
a makeshift refugee camp in a "no man's land" in Lebanon because of
the Lebanese government's refusal to accept them.
(AP, 12/19/97)

1992 Rafik Hariri, billionaire
businessman, led the reconstruction of Lebanon after taking office
as Prime Minister. He hired a Cairo-based engineering firm to design
a world-class financial center and a new airport.
(SFC, 5/4/96, p.A-8)(WSJ, 4/6/98, p.A1)

1993 Jan 9, Two Red Cross
officials visited a camp of Palestinians who had been deported by
Israel to a no man's land in southern Lebanon.
(AP, 1/9/03)

1993 Jul 25, Israel launched
its heaviest artillery and air assault on Lebanon since 1982 in an
attempt to eradicate Hezbollah and Palestinian guerrilla threats.
Guerrillas fired rockets into Israel. The fighting ended July 31
with a U.S.-brokered cease-fire. Israel and Hezbollah then agreed
not to attack civilian targets, but the cease-fire was short lived.
(AP, 7/25/98)(SFC, 5/24/00, p.A15)

1994 Feb 27, A Maronite church
near Beirut was bombed and 10 people were killed.
(www.cidcm.umd.edu/inscr/mar/data/lebchstchro.htm)

1994 May 21, Israeli commandos
swept into Lebanon’s eastern mountains and abducted Mustafa Dirani,
a Shiite Muslim guerrilla leader of the Believer's Resistance. In
2000 Dirani sued Israel with charges of torture and sodomy. Dirani
was released in Jan 2004, as part of a complex prisoner exchange
between Hezbollah and Israel.
(SFEC, 11/17/96, p.A14)(SFC, 3/14/00, p.A10)(AP,
5/21/04)

1994 Mohammed Mehdi Shamseddine
(d.2001 at 67) was elected spiritual leader of Lebanon’s 1.2 million
Shiite Muslims. His life’s work included 25 books on Islamic issues.
(SFC, 1/16/01, p.C4)

1995 Nov, Lebanese guerrillas
of the Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel. Israeli
warplanes retaliated by hitting rebel strongholds. Hezbollah or
Party of God is the Iranian-backed political and military group that
is fighting to dislodge Israeli soldiers from southern Lebanon.
(WSJ, 11/29/95, p.A1)(SFC, 4/14/96, p.1)

1996 Apr 18, A base at Qana,
Lebanon, manned by Fijian UNIFIL troops was shelled by Israel and
led to 75 (revised to 106) civilian deaths. A later UN investigation
found the remains of 15 Israeli shells that indicated a targeted
assault. Israel called the attack an "unfortunate mistake."
(WSJ, 4/19/96, p.A-1)(SFC, 5/7/96, p.A-8)(AP,
4/18/97)(AP, 7/26/06)

1996 Apr 22, After 11 days of
focusing on Hezbollah guerrillas, Israeli warplanes turned to a new
target in Lebanon, attacking the heavily fortified base of the
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
(AP, 4/22/97)

1996 Apr 25, US Sec. of State
Warren Christopher helped produce a cease-fire between Israel and
the Hezbollah guerillas in Lebanon. In the “April Understanding”
Israel, Lebanon, France, Syria and the US agreed that Lebanese and
Israeli civilians would not be targeted in Hezbollah’s drive to end
Israel’s occupation.
(WSJ, 5/6/96, p.A-13)(SFC, 7/31/06, p.A7)

1996 Apr 27, Tens of thousands
of refugees streamed home to southern Lebanon after a U.S.-brokered
cease-fire silenced the guns in the 16-day Israel-Hezbollah war. The
World Bank, which had committed $300 million to rebuilding Lebanon,
will consider if more money is needed after the Israeli blitz.
(SFC, 5/4/96, P.A-8)(AP, 4/27/97)

1996 May 3, A preliminary UN
report says that Israel fired knowingly on a southern Lebanon UN
compound on April 18 after pro-Iranian guerrillas sought refuge in
the area.
(SFC, 5/4/96, p.A-8)

1996 May 31, Israeli warplanes
attacked a Hezbollah base in eastern Lebanon in retaliation for an
ambush that killed four Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon.
(SFC, 5/31/96, A16)

1996 Nov 28, Demonstrations
against Prime Minister Hariri’s handling of the economy were broken
up with tanks and troops in Beirut.
(WSJ, 11/29/96, p.A1)

1996 Dec 16, The US, EU and
other countries agreed to a package of economic and military
assistance worth $2.2 billion. The US said that its aid would
increase to more than $20 million next year.
(SFC, 12/17/96, p.B3)

1997 Jun 9, Five Japanese Red
Army guerillas went on trial on charges of passport forgery and
illegal entry. The light charges prevented their extradition to
Japan. [see Mar]
(SFC, 6/10/97, p.A16)

1997 Jul 30, The US lifted a
12-year ban on US citizens visits to Lebanon.
(G&M, 7/31/97, p.A8)

1997 Aug 8, Fighting broke out
on the Israel-Lebanon border when guerrillas fired rockets into
northern Israel and Israeli warplanes struck back. 13 people have
died since Aug 4 when Israeli commandos set off bombs behind the
front line killing 3 guerrilla field commanders and 2 fighters.
(SFC, 8/9/97, p.A8)

1997 Aug 18, Militiamen under
the South Lebanon Army, a key ally of Israel, shelled the port city
of Sidon and killed at least 6 people while injuring over 3 dozen.
In apparent retaliation northern Israel was hit by dozens of
Katyusha rockets fired from Lebanon.
(SFC, 8/19/97, p.A8)

1997 Dec 18, A foundation stone
was laid for the new US consulate in Beirut.
(SFC,12/19/97, p.B3)

1998 Jan 30, The army clashed
with supporters of Sheikh Sobhi Tufaili in Baalbek and at least 50
people were killed. Tufaili had been expelled a week earlier from
the Muslim fundamentalist Hezbollah.
(SFEC, 2/1/98, p.A21)

1998 Feb 4, It was reported
that the 300,000 Palestinians living in Lebanon in refugee camps
were barred from work outside the camps except for common labor or
agriculture. The refugees, mostly Sunni Muslims from a minority
tribe, were not wanted by the Lebanese.
(SFC, 2/4/98, p.C2)

1998 Feb 20, The book “The
Dream Palace of the Arabs” by Fouad Ajami (b.1945 in Lebanon)
describes the emergence and collapse of the Arab enlightenment
following WW I.
(WSJ, 2/20/98, p.A16)

1998 Apr 1, Israel accepted the
1978 UN Resolution 425 for withdrawal from the south of Lebanon.
(SFC, 4/2/98, p.A12)

1998 May 13, Israeli jets
raided Lebanon and killed 3 men and wounded 21 in an attack on the
radical Palestinian group, Fatah the Uprising. As many as 10 men
were killed in a Bekaa Valley training camp for Palestinian
guerrillas.
(SFC, 5/13/98, p.A13)(SFC, 5/14/98, p.C2)

1998 May 25, Opposition groups
made gains in the first elections in 35 years. The first stage of
the poll was in the Mount Lebanon governate.
(SFC, 5/26/98, p.A8)

1998 Jun 25, Two Israeli
soldiers were killed in southern Lebanon by a roadside bomb and
seriously wounded 3. Meanwhile the government traded the corpses of
40 Lebanese guerrillas and the release of 60 Lebanese prisoners for
the body of Itamar Ilya, a commando killed on Sep 5, 1997.
(SFC, 6/26/98, p.A16)

1998 Shiite Muslims made up 34%
of the 3 million population, Sunni Muslims accounted for 21%,
Christians made up 37.6% and Druze (a secret religion related to
Islam) made up 7.1%.
(SFC, 9/28/98, p.A10)

1999 May 13, In Lebanon a
roadside bomb killed a child, 2 women and a pro-Israeli militia
officer. The bomb was believed to have been detonated by Hezbollah
guerrillas. Separately Israeli planes killed 2 men as they struck
back for an overnight attack by guerrillas on Israeli-occupied
territory that left 1 civilian dead and 4 injured.
(SFC, 5/14/99, p.A15)

1999 Jun 1, In Lebanon an
Israeli supported militia withdrew from a strategic position in
South Lebanon.
(SFC, 6/2/99, p.A11)

1999 Jun 8, In Lebanon 3 judges
were killed along with a prosecutor in Sidon.
(WSJ, 6/9/99, p.A1)

1999 Dec 16, In Lebanon
shelling by the Israeli allied South Lebanon Army his an elementary
school and 20 children were wounded.
(SFC, 12/17/99, p.D8)

1999 Dec 31, In Lebanon Muslim
militants ambushed an army patrol and killed 4 soldiers with 3
wounded in Diniyah. A kidnapped soldier was found dead the next day
and a kidnapped Lt. Col. Was missing.
(SFEC, 1/2/00, p.A27)

2000 Feb 7, Israeli jets
launched air attacks deep into Lebanon. Power was knocked out at
Baalbek, headquarters of the Hezbollah, and at Beirut and Tripoli.
18 civilians were injured.
(SFC, 2/8/00, p.A12)

2000 Feb 9, Israeli jets struck
targets in southern Lebanon for the 11th day and Foreign Minister
David Levy threatened that it would set Lebanon on fire if militants
retaliated with rockets.
(SFC, 2/10/00, p.A10)

2000 Feb 11, In Lebanon
Hezbollah launched another rocket attack that killed an Israeli
soldier. Israel responded with warplanes and attacks in southern
Lebanon and the eastern Bekaa Valley to which Hezbollah responded
with fresh hits. Israel cancelled an urgent -US-led meeting called
to diffuse the widening war.
(SFC, 2/12/00, p.A11)

2000 Mar 5, In Israel the
government voted to back Prime Minister Barak's plan to withdraw
troops from southern Lebanon by July.
(SFC, 3/6/00, p.A10)

2000 Mar 17, Lebanon granted
asylum to Kozo Okamoto, one of the terrorists in the May 30, 1972
massacre at an Israeli airport. 4 other Japanese Red Army members
were deported to Japan.
(SFC, 3/18/00, p.A3)

2000 Apr 3, US defense chief
Cohen said that the US would join an int’l. force in south Lebanon
when Israel pulls out.
(WSJ, 4/4/00, p.A1)

2000 Apr 12, In Israel the
Supreme Court ruled that the detention of Lebanese men for more than
a decade was illegal. A release was scheduled for 13 men on Apr 17.
(SFC, 4/13/00, p.A14)

2000 Apr 26, Prime Minister
Salim Hoss announced that UN peacekeepers would be allowed to fill
the vacuum left by departing Israelis.
(SFC, 4/27/00, p.A10)

2000 May 4, Lebanese guerrillas
fired some 20 Katyusha rockets into Kiryat Shemona, a town in
northern Israel. One Israeli soldier was killed and over 24 people
were injured. Israel retaliated with heavy air strikes.
(SFC, 5/5/00, p.A14)(WSJ, 5/5/00, p.A1)

2000 May 5, Israel and
Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon agreed to a cease-fire.
(SFC, 5/6/00, p.C1)

2000 May 23, The South Lebanon
Army abandoned its positions and Israel’s 22-year occupation of its
“security zone” ended.
(SFC, 5/24/00, p.A1)

2000 May 28, In southern
Lebanon 2 children were killed and 7 people were injured when their
car drove over a land mine. In Rmeiche a Hezbollah fighter killed a
Christian man. At Kafr Kila Israeli soldiers fired on Lebanese and
Palestinian civilians throwing stones across the border.
(SFC, 5/29/00, p.A10)

2000 Aug 5, UN peacekeeping
troops began spreading out along the border between Israel and
Lebanon.
(SFEC, 8/6/00, p.C9)

2000 Aug 27, Elections were
held for 63 seats of the 128-member parliament for Mount Lebanon and
North Lebanon.
(SFC, 8/28/00, p.A11)

2000 Sep 3, In Lebanon
elections were held for the remaining 65 seats of parliament.
Hezbollah had agreed to accept only 12 seats in a coalition with the
Shiite Amal Party. Parliamentary seats were apportioned according to
religious denomination based on a census from 1932. Candidates
backed by former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri gained a powerful
majority.
(SFEC, 9/3/00, p.A18)(SFC, 9/4/00, p.B10)

2000 Oct 7, Three Israeli
soldiers were kidnapped on the Lebanon border. Un peacekeepers made
a film 18 hours later that showed Hezbollah guerrillas, the vehicles
used and other evidence of the abduction.
(SFC, 7/12/01, p.A12)

2000 Oct 16, Israel announced
the kidnapping by Hizbullah of Elchanan Tannenbaum (b.1946), a
colonel in Israel’s reserves. He was kidnapped in Dubai and taken to
Lebanon. Tannenbaum was released in January 2004 as part of a
prisoner swap with Hezbollah. The swap exchanged 435 prisoners held
by Israel in return for Tannenbaum's release and the return of the
bodies of 3 soldiers killed during an ambush along the
Israeli-Lebanese border.
(Econ, 9/6/08,
p.99)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elchanan_Tennenbaum)

2000 Nov 26, Israel attacked
targets in southern Lebanon after a roadside bomb killed one Israeli
soldier and wounded 2 others near the border. 4 armed Palestinians
were killed as they left Qalqilya into an area on Israeli control.
(SFC, 11/27/00, p.A8)

2002 Jan 24, In Beirut,
Lebanon, a car bomb killed Elie Hobeika and three others. Hobeika, a
former Christian militia chieftain, led a 1982 massacre of
Palestinian refugees in the Sabra and Chatilla camps. He had
recently agreed to testify against Israeli PM Ariel Sharon in
connection with the massacre. Lebanese for a Free and Independent
Lebanon claimed responsibility for the car bomb.
(SFC, 1/25/02, p.A10)

2002 Mar 27, In Beirut the Arab
League opened a summit of its 22 member states. Egypt’s Pres.
Mubarek did not attend. It dissolved into chaos when Palestinian
delegates stalked out when Arafat was not given a prominent place
for a live broadcast. Arafat endorsed the peace initiative of Prince
Abdullah.
(SFC, 3/26/02, p.A10)(WSJ, 3/27/02, p.A1)

2002 Mar 28, In Beirut the Arab
League committed to accepting Israel as a neighbor under conditions
that included the creation of an independent Palestinian state and
Israel's full withdrawal from war-won lands, an offer that Israel
did not accept.
(SFC, 3/29/02, p.A15)(AP,
3/28/03)(www.mideastweb.org/saudipeace.htm)

2002 Apr 3, Israeli tanks
entered the Wet Bank cities of Jenin, Salfeet and Nablus. At least 1
Israeli soldier and 12 Palestinians were killed. Gunners from
Lebanon’s Hezbollah exchanged artillery and mortar fire with Israeli
troops. Scores of Palestinian gunmen were holed up in the Church of
the Nativity in Bethlehem. The Egyptian government announced a
cutoff of official contacts with Israel. Syria shifted 20,000 troops
in Lebanon toward the Lebanese-Syrian border reportedly in accord
with the 1989 Taif agreement.
(SFC, 4/3/02, p.A1)(SFC, 4/4/02, p.A1,13)(WSJ,
4/4/02, p.A1)(SSFC, 4/7/02, p.A4)

2002 May 20, In Lebanon a car
bomb killed Jihad Jibril (38), head of local military operations for
the PFLP-GC. He was the son of Palestinian guerrilla leader Ahmed
Jibril who headed the Syrian-based Popular Front for the Liberation
of Palestine-General Command, founded in 1968. In 2008 a retired
Lebanese police officer and a Palestinian were indicted for
allegedly working with Israeli intelligence to assassinate Jibril.
(SFC, 5/21/02, p.A16)(AP, 6/18/08)

2002 Jul 11, Three members of
the Lebanese army intelligence service were killed while trying to
make arrests near Lebanon's largest Palestinian refugee camp, the
Lebanese army said.
(AP, 7/11/02)

2002 Jul 31, In Lebanon a
disgruntled Education Ministry employee opened fire at colleagues at
a ministry office in Beirut, killing eight people and wounding five
before he was apprehended by police.
(AP, 7/31/02)

2002 Sep 14, President Emile
Lahoud said Lebanon will start pumping water from a shared border
river for its southern villages despite Israeli military threats.
(AP, 9/14/02)

2002 Sep 27, In Lebanon tens of
thousands marched through the streets of Beirut chanting "death to
Israel" and "death to America," in support of Palestinians' third
year of uprising.
(AP, 9/27/02)
2002 Sep 27, Police in Lebanon
arrested Muhammad Sultan on charges of forging passports and
supporting a terrorist group based on German police investigations.
Sultan was released in 2004 after serving a 3½ year sentence.
(WSJ, 1/31/06, p.A6)

2002 Nov 21, In Sidon, Lebanon,
Bonnie Witherall (31), an American missionary, was shot and killed
at a Christian center that provides medical care and aid to
Palestinian refugees.
(AP, 11/21/02)

2002 Nov 23, Some of the
world's richest countries agreed to offer about $4.3 billion in
financial support for debt-ridden Lebanon.
(AP, 11/23/02)

2003 Mar, In 2007 British media
reported that Iran had offered to cut off aid and support for the
Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah and the Palestinian group Hamas,
and promised full transparency on its nuclear program in a secret
letter to the US soon after the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Iran also
offered to use its influence to support stabilization in Iraq, and
in return asked for a halt in hostile American behaviour, an
abolition of all sanctions, and the pursuit and repatriation of
members of the Mujahedeen Khalq (People's Mujahedeen MKO). Lawrence
Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell, said: “As soon as
it got to the Vice-President's (Dick Cheney) office, the old mantra
of 'we don't talk to evil' ... reasserted itself."
(AFP, 1/18/07)

2003 Sep 7, The Russian drama
"The Return" won the Venice Film Festival's Golden Lion for best
picture. Vladimir Girin (15), star of the film, drowned shortly
after the film was shot. Randa Chahal Sabbag, Lebanese filmmaker,
won the Silver Lion prize for her film “Le cerf-volant” (The Kite),
a love story between a Lebanese girl and an Israeli border guard.
(SFC, 9/8/03, p.D5)(WPR, 3/04, p.45)

2003 Oct 11, A Lebanese woman
gave birth to sextuplets, four girls and two boys.
(AP, 10/11/03)

2003 Oct 27, Hezbollah
guerrillas shelled Israeli positions in southern Lebanon for the
first time in two months, wounding an Israeli soldier and triggering
Israeli airstrikes and artillery fire. The Israeli positions
were in Chebaa Farms, which Lebanon and Syria say belongs to
Lebanon. The UN says the area is Syrian and that Syria and Israel
should negotiate its fate. Israel captured the Chebaa Farms area
from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war
(AP, 10/27/03)(AP, 10/30/03)

2003 Dec 20, A Lebanese
military court convicted 32 people of bombing American and British
businesses, and imposed sentences ranging from three months to life
imprisonment.
(AP, 12/20/03)

2003 Dec 25, A passenger plane
bound for Beirut crashed into the sea shortly after takeoff from the
west African nation of Benin and at least 138 people, mostly
Lebanese, were killed. Some 35 people survived.
(AP, 12/25/03)(SFC, 12/26/03, p.A3)(AP, 12/27/03)

2004 Jan 29, Israel released
435 prisoners in a swap, mediated by Germany, with the Lebanese
guerrilla group Hezbollah in exchange for an Israeli businessman and
the bodies of 3 Israeli soldiers. The businessman was Elchanan
Tannenbaum, a colonel in Israel’s reserves, who was kidnapped in
Dubai in 2000 and had knowledge of an advanced Israeli weapons
system.
(AP, 1/29/04)(Econ, 9/6/08, p.99)

2004 Feb 9, The UN adopted
Resolution 1559. It called for free elections in Lebanon and the
withdrawal of all foreign forces and the disbanding of all militias.
(www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2004/sc8181.doc.htm)

2004 Mar 5, A bomb exploded as
south Lebanon's police chief was driving across a bridge in the
eastern region, blowing off one foot and mangling another.
(AP, 3/5/04)

2004 Jun 12, A Lebanese Foreign
Ministry official said Iraqi gunmen had kidnapped three Lebanese in
Iraq and killed one of them.
(AP, 6/12/04)

2004 Jul 9, Cpl. Wassef Ali
Hassoun (24) arrived in Germany from Lebanon, where he had turned up
at the US Embassy in Beirut a day earlier. He had been missing since
June 20 from his base near the troubled Iraqi city of Fallujah. The
Pentagon announced that Hassoun would be charged with desertion,
larceny and wrongful disposition of military property in connection
with his service-issued M9 pistol that disappeared with him and
never turned up. On January 4, 2005, he was again labeled a deserter
after failing to return to his base at Camp Lejeune in North
Carolina from authorized leave. He was reportedly in Lebanon.
(www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/01/05/hassoun.case/index.html)(AP,
7/10/04)(SFC, 7/9/04, p.A1)

2004 Jul 19, The car of a
Hezbollah militia official exploded as he was leaving his home in
southern Beirut, killing him in an attack the Islamic militant group
said was a "brazen crime" by Israel that would be avenged.
(AP, 7/19/04)

2004 Aug 1, A Lebanese hostage
was freed unharmed after Iraqi police raided his kidnappers' hideout
in an operation that ended with the arrest of three terror suspects.
(AP, 8/2/04)

2004 Aug 13, Lebanon criticized
French efforts to ban the militant group Hezbollah's television
station, saying the channel may be anti-Israeli but it is not
anti-Semitic.
(AP, 8/14/04)

2004 Aug 28, In Lebanon
pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud's bid to stay in office three more
years was assured in a dramatic about-face when political rival
Prime Minister Rafik Hariri bowed to Syrian pressure and proposed a
constitutional amendment allowing the head of state to extend his
term.
(AP, 8/28/04)

2004 Sep 2, The UN Security
Council narrowly approved a U.S.-backed resolution aimed at
pressuring Lebanon to reject a second term for its pro-Syrian
president and calling for an immediate withdrawal of all foreign
forces.
(AP, 9/2/04)(Econ, 9/11/04, p.43)

2004 Sep 10, Two Lebanese men
were shot dead in Baghdad.
(AP, 9/10/04)

2004 Sep 15, The Egyptian and
Syrian presidents linked calls by the UN and fellow Arab leaders for
Syrian troops to leave Lebanon to past UN resolutions demanding that
Israeli pull out of the West Bank and Golan Heights.
(AP, 9/15/04)

2004 Sep 21, Italian and
Lebanese authorities reported the arrest of 10 alleged terrorists,
thwarting plans to blow up the Italian Embassy in Beirut in a car
bomb attack.
(AP, 9/21/04)
2004 Sep 21, Hundreds of Syrian
soldiers stationed in the hills near Lebanon's capital began
dismantling their bases in an effort to appease a U.N. Security
Council demand that all 20,000 Syrian troops leave the country.
(AP, 9/21/04)

2004 Sep 27, Lebanon said a top
al Qaeda operative, captured a week earlier, died of a heart attack
while in police custody.
(WSJ, 9/28/04, p.A1)

2004 Oct 1, In Lebanon a car
bomb exploded in central Beirut, wounding a former Lebanese Cabinet
minister in an assassination attempt. The explosion killed the
politician's driver and seriously wounded his bodyguard.
(AP, 10/1/04)

2004 Oct 2, In Lebanon a
military prosecutor has charged 35 Arab nationals and alleged
members of an al-Qaida-linked terror group with plotting to bomb
foreign targets, including the Italian and Ukrainian diplomatic
missions.
(AP, 10/2/04)

2004 Oct 20, Lebanon’s PM Rafik
Hariri resigned, dissolved his Cabinet and made the surprise
announcement that he would not try to form the next government.
(AP, 10/20/04)(Econ, 10/23/04, p.47)

2005 Jan 1, Lebanon was
forecast for 4% annual GDP growth with a population at 3.8 million
and GDP per head at $5,110.
(Econ, 1/8/05, p.94)

2005 Jan 9, A French officer
serving with U.N. peacekeepers in Lebanon was killed by Israeli
shelling, shortly after a Hezbollah bomb attack killed an Israeli
soldier and wounded three others near the southern border.
(AP, 1/9/05)

2005 Jan 17, Israeli warplanes
attacked suspected Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon after the
guerrillas said they blew up an Israeli bulldozer in a disputed area
near the border, reportedly causing casualties.
(AP, 1/17/05)

2005 Jan 23, Lebanon's finance
minister played down the transfer by Iraq's Defense Ministry of $500
million in cash to a financial institution in Beirut, saying he
would expect such a transfer to be legal if it was made by the Iraqi
government. Iraqi officials in early January sent some $300 million
on a charter jet to Lebanon to purchase weapons from int’l. arms
dealers.
(SFC, 1/22/05, p.A10)(AP, 1/23/05)

2005 Feb 14, In Beirut,
Lebanon, Rafik Hariri (60) was killed in a massive bomb explosion
that tore through his motorcade. The billionaire helped rebuild his
country after decades of war but resigned as PM last fall after a
sharp dispute with Syria. 22 other people were killed and 100
wounded in a blast that devastated the front of the famous St.
George Hotel. An Islamist group calling itself the Victory and Jihad
Organization in the Levant claimed responsibility.
(AP, 2/14/05)(WSJ, 2/15/05, p.A3)(Econ, 10/29/05,
p.45)

2005 Feb 15, In southern
Lebanon an angry mob attacked Syrian workers and another group threw
stones and set fires outside a Syrian government office in Beirut,
blaming Damascus for the bomb that killed former PM Rafik Hariri.
(AP, 2/15/05)

2005 Feb 18, The Lebanese
opposition stepped up its campaign against the pro-Syrian
government, calling for a peaceful uprising to force the resignation
of Prime Minister Omar Karami and the withdrawal of Syrian troops.
(AP, 2/19/05)

2005 Feb 21, The Arab League
chief said that Syria will "soon" take steps to withdraw its army
from Lebanese areas in accordance with a 1989 agreement. Tens of
thousands of opposition supporters shouted insults at Syria and
demanded the resignation of their pro-Syrian government in a Beirut
demonstration.
(AP, 2/21/05)

2005 Feb 23, Egyptian President
Hosni Mubarak said that he expects further Syrian troop
redeployments in Lebanon, and he dispatched his intelligence chief
to Damascus to meet with President Bashar Assad to discuss
increasing American and European pressure on Syria.
(AP, 2/23/05)

2005 Feb 24, Lebanon's defense
minister said Syria will withdraw troops from mountain and coastal
areas in Lebanon in line with a 1989 agreement.
(AP, 2/24/05)

2005 Feb 28, Defying a ban on
protests, about 10,000 people demonstrated against Syrian
interference in Lebanon, as opposition lawmakers sought to bring
down the pro-Damascus government. The pro-Damascus PM Omar Karami
and his Cabinet resigned.
(AP, 2/28/05)(SFC, 3/1/05, p.A1)

2005 Mar 1, Lebanon's president
took on the task of forming a new government, while opposition
leaders shook off the jubilation of using people power to force out
a pro-Syrian Cabinet.
(AP, 3/1/05)

2005 Mar 2, President Bush
demanded in blunt terms that Syria get out of Lebanon.
(AP, 3/2/05)

2005 Mar 3, An Arab League
meeting opened in Cairo. An Arab diplomat said Syria has told Arab
countries it needs to keep 3,000 troops and early-warning stations
inside Lebanon to maintain its security despite international
pressure for a full withdrawal. Saudi Arabia told Syria to withdraw
its troops.
(AP, 3/3/05)(SFC, 3/4/05, p.A3)

2005 Mar 5, Syria’s Pres. Assad
outlined a two-step pullback: 1st to Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, nearer
to the Syrian border; 2nd, a redeployment from there all the way to
the Syrian frontier.
(AP, 3/5/05)

2005 Mar 7, The presidents of
Syria and Lebanon announced that Syrian forces will pull back to
Lebanon's eastern Bekaa Valley by March 31, but a complete troop
withdrawal will be deferred until after later negotiations.
(AP, 3/7/05)

2005 Mar 11, The last Syrian
troops left northern Lebanon but left behind intelligence officers
in nine offices. The UN Mideast envoy said Syria needs to produce a
timetable for a full withdrawal from the rest of Lebanon. Since 1976
some 15,000 Syrian troops were killed in the Lebanese civil war.
Lebanese protests following the Feb 14 assassination of Rafik
Hariri, later dubbed the “cedar revolution,” forced Pres. Assad to
withdraw his army after a 30-year stay.
(AP, 3/11/05)(Econ, 4/2/05, p.41)(Econ, 7/25/09,
SR p.11)

2005 Mar 12, It was reported
that Lebanese have been switching their savings from Lebanese pounds
to the safety of the dollar for fear the local currency will
collapse, as it did during the war. The Central Bank has unloaded
hundreds of millions of dollars to shore up the pound.
(AP, 3/12/05)

2005 Mar 23, In Lebanon a bomb
killed three people in a Christian commercial center, the second
attack in an anti-Syrian stronghold in five days.
(AP, 3/23/05)

2005 Mar 29, Syria promised the
UN that it will withdraw all troops from Lebanon before
parliamentary elections but didn't mention a pullout of its
intelligence operatives as demanded by the Security Council.
(AP, 3/29/05)

2005 Apr 18, Lebanese lawmaker
Bassel Fleihan (41), a former economy minister, died of wounds
received 2 months ago in a bombing that killed his close friend,
former PM Rafik Hariri.
(AP, 4/18/05)

2005 Apr 24, Syrian troops
burned documents and dismantled military posts in their final hours
in Lebanon, before deploying toward the border and effectively
ending 29 years of military presence in the country.
(AP, 4/24/05)

2005 May 6, In Lebanon an
explosion ravaged a shopping area and set off a fire near a
Christian religious radio station in the port city of Jounieh north
of Beirut.
(AP, 5/7/05)

2005 May 7, Gen. Michel Aoun,
who led a quixotic battle to oust Syria's army from Lebanon 16 years
ago, returned to Lebanon from a lengthy exile in France.
(AP, 5/7/05)

2005 May 11, A Katyusha rocket
fired from Lebanon landed in the northern Israeli town of Shlomi
heavily damaging a factory and drawing an Israeli threat of
retaliation.
(AP, 5/11/05)

2005 May 13, Hezbollah shelled
Israeli positions in the disputed Chebaa Farms near the border, and
the Israeli army returned fire in the heaviest exchange in months
between Israel and the Lebanese guerrilla force.
(AP, 5/13/05)

2005 May 25, In Lebanon Sheik
Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah's leader, vowed to fight anyone who
tries to take away the group's weapons, which he said included more
than 12,000 rockets capable of hitting northern Israel.
(AP, 5/26/05)

2005 May 29, Lebanon held
parliamentary elections. Candidates loyal to the son of assassinated
politician Rafik Hariri swept the 1st stage of the first Lebanese
election largely free of Syrian domination, claiming all 19
parliamentary seats in Beirut.
(AP, 5/30/05)

2005 May 30, Officials in
Lebanon announced that Saad Hariri, the son of assassinated former
premier Rafik Hariri, had swept parliamentary elections in Beirut.
(AP, 5/30/06)

2005 Jun 2, In Lebanon Samir
Kassir, a prominent journalist known for his anti-Syrian writings,
was killed after a bomb placed in his car exploded in Beirut.
(AP, 6/2/05)

2005 Jun 5, Lebanon held its
2nd of a 4-stage vote. A week earlier anti-Syrian opposition
candidates took most of the capital's 19 parliamentary seats. 53
candidates vied for 23 seats in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah, the
armed group considered a terrorist organization by the US, and its
Amal allies swept voting in southern Lebanon.
(AP, 6/6/05)(WSJ, 6/7/05, p.A1)

2005 Jun 12, Lebanon held its
third round of a four-stage election. Michel Aoun, a Lebanese
Christian general, appeared headed toward a surprising victory. He
once fought the Syrian army and returned from exile just weeks ago.
Fifty-eight of 128 seats in parliament were at stake in the
elections in central and eastern regions of the country.
(AP, 6/13/05)

2005 Jun 19, In Lebanon voters
cast their ballot in the last round of elections. The anti-Syrian
opposition secured a majority in the Lebanese parliament, after
opposition candidates swept all seats in the last round of
elections. The winning pro-Western coalition became known as the
March 14th alliance after the recent big anti-Syrian demonstrations.
(AP, 6/20/05)(Econ, 11/13/10, p.53)

2005 Jun 21, In Lebanon George
Hawi (67), a former Communist boss and critic of Syria, was killed
when his car blew up on a Beirut street in the 2nd slaying of an
anti-Syrian figure this month.
(AP, 6/24/05)

2005 Jun 28, Lebanon's new
parliament overwhelmingly re-elected a pro-Syrian as speaker in a
political compromise by the anti-Syrian coalition that won the
elections.
(AP, 6/28/05)

2005 Jul 18, Lebanon's newly
elected Parliament, dominated by an anti-Syrian coalition, approved
an amnesty motion for the release of former Christian warlord Samir
Geagea, who has been behind bars since 1994.
(AP, 7/18/05)

2005 Jul 20, In Lebanon
PM-designate Fuad Siniora announced a cabinet of 24 ministers. The
lineup for the first time included a member of the Hizb Allah
movement. Mohammed Fneish became energy minister. Hizb Allah ally
Tarrad Hamadeh retained the post of labor minister.
(http://tinyurl.com/m8ctm)

2005 Jul 22, In Lebanon a bomb
exploded on a narrow street crowded with bars and restaurants,
wounding 12 people just hours after US Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice visited the area.
(AP, 7/23/05)

2005 Jul 26, In Lebanon Samir
Geagea (53), a notorious anti-Syrian Christian warlord, was released
after 11 years in prison.
(AP, 7/26/05)

2005 Jul 28, Assistant
Secretary of State David Welch told the US House International
Relations Committee said Iranian cadres are training Hezbollah
fighters in Lebanon.
(AP, 7/28/05)

2005 Aug 1, Trucks loaded with
produce and other merchandise began crossing into Syria from Lebanon
on their way to Gulf countries after Syria eased restrictions that
left them stranded for nearly four weeks in the border area.
(AP, 8/1/05)

2005 Aug 11, Lebanese police
arrested Omar Bakri, the Islamic cleric who is being investigated in
Britain for his remarks on the London bombings.
(AP, 8/11/05)

2005 Aug 12, Lebanon freed the
radical Muslim cleric Omar Bakri, hours after Britain declared he
would not be allowed to return to its shores.
(AP, 8/12/05)

2005 Aug 22, In Lebanon a
bombing wounded five people in Beirut.
(AP, 8/23/05)

2005 Aug 30, Lebanon's PM Fuad
Saniora said the commander of the Presidential Guards, three former
security chiefs and a former lawmaker are suspects in the Feb 14
assassination of former PM Rafik Hariri.
(AP, 8/30/05)

2005 Sep 16, In Lebanon a
powerful bomb exploded in a Christian neighborhood of eastern
Beirut, killing at least one person and wounding 23.
(AP, 9/16/05)

2005 Sep 21, In Lebanon police
arrested four men who allegedly sold cell phone chips to members of
the plot to assassinate former PM Rafik Hariri.
(AP, 9/23/05)

2005 Sep 25, A bomb rigged to
the car of May Chidiac, a prominent journalist for an anti-Syrian
television station, exploded severing her arm and leg in the latest
in a string of targeted explosions in Lebanon.
(AP, 9/25/05)

2005 Sep, The novel “The Girls
of Riyadh” by Rajaa al-Sanie (23) was published in Lebanon. Only
pirated copies were available in Saudi Arabia. Rajaa Alsanea wrote
the novel as a series of anonymous e-mails about the protagonists.
In 2007 the book became available in English.
(SFC, 12/16/05, p.A29)(WSJ, 6/29/07, p.W2)

2005 Oct 19, The International
Organization for Migration (IMO) said "Ethiopian women and girls who
migrate to Lebanon, Egypt, Yemen and Saudi Arabia suffer from
maltreatment, physical, sexual and emotional abuses," in a report
based on interviews with 443 women returning from the region.
(AP, 10/20/05)

2005 Oct 20, It was reported
that Lebanon's state-run telephone system has billed the government
for more than $11 million in unpaid telephone charges run up by
Syrian troops before they left the country earlier this year after a
nearly three-decade occupation. Information Minister Ghazi Aridi
said Lebanon’ government would pay the bill.
(AP, 10/20/05)

2005 Oct 23, Militant
Palestinians fought members of a Lebanese leftist party in a gun
battle that left one man dead and three wounded outside a refugee
camp.
(AP, 10/23/05)

2005 Oct 31, A UN resolution
sponsored by the US, France and Britain demanded that Syria assist
fully with a probe into the February killing of former Lebanese
leader Hariri.
(WSJ, 11/1/05, p.A1)

2005 Nov 14, It was reported
that a consortium led by Saudi Arabia's Oger Telecom has signed a
deal to take a majority stake in state-owned telecommunications
company Turk Telekom, sealing Turkey's largest privatization worth
6.55 billion dollars. Oger Telecom, part of the Oger group owned by
the family of slain former Lebanese PM Rafiq Hariri, had won the
tender for the 55% stake in July, in partnership with Italian
operator Telecom Italia.
(AFP, 11/14/05)

2005 Nov 21, Hezbollah
guerrillas in Lebanon fired mortars and rockets at Israeli troops in
a disputed border area, the first clash between the two sides in
five months. 4 Hezbollah guerrillas were killed in raids meant to
capture Israeli troops along the Lebanon border.
(AP, 11/21/05)(WSJ, 11/22/05, p.A1)

2005 Nov 25, Israel handed over
the remains of three Hezbollah guerrillas to Lebanon in a bid to
defuse tensions after fierce border clashes, but Hezbollah's leader
said his group will keep trying to kidnap Israeli soldiers.
(AP, 11/25/05)

2005 Dec 3, Troops exhumed the
remains of 25 bodies from a mass grave near a former Syrian military
base in eastern Lebanon. About 17,000 Lebanese who disappeared
during 1975-90 civil war are still missing, including 61 Lebanese
soldiers.
(AP, 12/03/05)

2005 Dec 12, In Lebanon Gibran
Tueni (48), general manager and chief columnist of the An-Nahar
newspaper, died when a car bomb struck his motorcade in Beirut's
suburb of Mkalles. The bombing killed two other people and wounded
30 more. Tueni was killed a day after returning from France, where
he had been staying periodically for fear of assassination. He was
assassinated at a time when several anti-Syrian Lebanese politicians
and journalists were targeted following the killing of ex-premier
Rafiq Hariri. He was the son of former ambassador Ghassan Tueni.
(AP, 12/13/05)(AFP, 6/8/12)

2005 Dec 16, Mohammed Ali
Hamadi, a Lebanese man serving a life sentence in Germany for the
1985 hijacking of a TWA jetliner and killing of a U.S. Navy diver,
returned to Lebanon after being paroled in Germany.
(AP, 12/20/05)

2005 Dec 17, The chief UN
investigator into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime
Minister Rafik Hariri said in published remarks that he believed
Syrian authorities were behind the killing.
(AP, 12/17/05)

2005 Dec 19, Lebanon closed a
military route that crossed its border into Syria, ending nearly 3
decades of unmonitored flow of high-ranking officials and goods
between the two countries.
(AP, 12/19/05)

2005 Dec 27, Abdel-Qadar Abdel
Qader, a Syrian, was arrested in Lebanon on suspicion of involvement
in the assassination of Gibran Tueni, the anti-Syrian general
manager and columnist of Lebanon's leading newspaper.
(AP, 12/27/05)
2005 Dec 27, Three rockets
landed in a residential area of a northern Israeli town near the
Lebanese border, damaging some property but causing no injuries.
(AP, 12/27/05)

2005 Dec 28, Israeli jets
blasted a Palestinian militant group's base a few miles outside
Beirut, hours after rockets fired from Lebanon hit a northern
Israeli border town.
(AP, 12/28/05)
2005 Dec 28, Officials said UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan has nominated Serge Brammertz, a
Belgian prosecutor, to lead the next stage of a probe into the
assassination of former Lebanese PM Rafik Hariri.
(AP, 12/28/05)

2005 In Lebanon interest
payments accounted for a third of government spending. The ratio of
debt to revenue was 751%, the world’s worst according to Moody’s
Investors’ Service.
(Econ, 9/2/06, p.65)

2006 Jan 17, Thousands of
pro-Syrian Lebanese chanting "Death to America" protested near the
US Embassy against what they called American meddling in the
country's affairs.
(AP, 1/17/06)

2006 Feb 2, Lebanese officials
said the bullet-ridden body of a 15-year-old shepherd was found in
disputed territory occupied by Israel.
(AP, 2/2/06)

2006 Feb 3, Hezbollah
guerrillas attacked an Israeli military position in a disputed part
of the south Lebanon border, provoking a swift Israeli airstrike on
suspected Hezbollah sites.
(AP, 2/3/06)

2006 Feb 5, Thousands of
Muslims rampaged in Beirut, setting fire to the Danish Embassy,
burning Danish flags and lobbing stones at a Maronite Catholic
church as violent protests spread over caricatures of the Prophet
Muhammad.
(AP, 2/5/06)

2006 Mar 13, Leaders of
Lebanon's rival factions resumed talks after a weeklong break in an
attempt to agree on the biggest issues that divide the country, the
fate of the pro-Syrian president and the U.N. call for Hezbollah's
disarmament.
(AP, 3/13/06)
2006 Mar 13, Rana Abdel Rahim
Koleilat (39), a fugitive bank executive wanted for questioning in
the U.N. probe of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri's
assassination, was arrested in Brazil on an unrelated charge. She
offered officers up to $200,000 to release her and was arrested on a
charge of attempted bribery. In 2003 Koleilat made headlines in
Lebanon and Europe in connection with questions about her role in
the disappearance of $300 million from the private Medina Bank where
she worked. The funds' disappearance was the worst financial scandal
at a Lebanese bank since the country's 1975-90 civil war.
(AP, 3/13/06)

2006 Mar 26, The UN said it did
not expect Lebanon to disarm Hezbollah guerillas by force but hoped
they would join the Lebanese army.
(AP, 3/26/06)

2006 Apr 10, Lebanon arrested 9
Lebanese and Palestinians suspected of plotting the assassination of
Hezbollah’s leader.
(WSJ, 4/11/06, p.A1)
2006 May 10, In Lebanon a
quarter-million-strong wave of workers, students and activists, some
backed by pro-Syrian groups, marched through Beirut, protesting a
proposed tax hike and calling for the anti-Syrian prime minister to
resign.
(AP, 5/10/06)

2006 May 26, In Lebanon
security officials said a car bomb killed Mahmoud Majzoub (41), a
leader of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and his brother Nidal (39).
Islamic Jihad vowed retaliation. The Iran-backed militant group had
persisted in attacking Israel while other major factions adhered to
a cease-fire. Islamic Jihad is led by Ramadan Shallah, a Palestinian
from Gaza who now lives in exile in Syria. It considers the 1979
Iranian Revolution to be the beginning of a new era for the Muslim
world and wants to turn all of Israel, the West Bank and Gaza into
an Islamic state. It rejects compromise with Israel.
(AP, 5/26/06)

2006 May 28, Lebanese
guerrillas fired a barrage of rockets into northern Israel, wounding
an Israeli soldier at a military base. Israel destroyed most of the
military positions of Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas along its
northern border. Rocket and artillery exchanges killed two
guerrillas in Lebanon and wounded two Israeli soldiers, two Lebanese
civilians and six militants.
(AP, 5/28/06)(AP, 5/29/06)

2006 Jun 1, Thousands of Shiite
Muslims enraged by a TV comedy that mocked the leader of Hezbollah
took to the streets of southern Beirut, burning car tires and
blocking roads.
(AP, 6/1/06)

2006 Jun 17, PM Fouad Siniora
said Lebanon will complain to the UN about Israel after a Lebanese
man confessed to killing Hezbollah and Palestinian guerrillas on May
26 on the orders of Israeli intelligence.
(Reuters, 6/17/06)

2006 Jun 26, Syrian President
Bashar Assad said in a published interview that Lebanon is becoming
a shelter for al-Qaida-linked militants fleeing across the Syrian
border after a crackdown by authorities there.
(AP, 6/26/06)

2006 Jul 12, Hezbollah
militants captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid. 3
Israeli soldiers were killed in the raid along with one Hezbollah
militant. Dozens of Israeli troops crossed the Lebanese frontier
with warplanes, tanks and gunboats to hunt for the captives. 5 more
Israelis were killed in a tank that hit a mine. Two Lebanese
civilians were killed in an Israeli air strike on a coastal bridge
at Qasmiyeh.
(AP, 7/12/06)(Econ, 7/15/06, p.45)

2006 Jul 13, Israel unleashed a
furious military campaign on Lebanon's main airport, highways,
military bases and other targets, retaliating for scores of
Hezbollah guerrilla rockets that rained down on Israel and reached
as far as Haifa, its third-largest city, for the first time. The
death toll in two days of fighting rose to 57 people. Lebanese
guerrillas fired three rockets at the northern Israeli town of
Safed, wounding seven people. Israel imposed a sea and air blockade
on Lebanon to cut off supply routes to Lebanese militants. Israel
hit hundreds of targets in Lebanon as part of its effort to force
the release of two soldiers captured by Hezbollah guerrillas.
Hezbollah’s Al-Manar Television broadcast pictures of the Iranian
supplied 333mm Raad-1 rocket used in an attack on the Israeli army
base near Safed.
(AP, 7/13/06)(SFC, 7/14/06, p.A14)
2006 Jul 13, The EU criticized
Israel for using "disproportionate" force in its attacks on Lebanon
following the cross-border raid by Hezbollah guerillas who captured
2 Israeli soldiers.
(AP, 7/13/06)

2006 Jul 14, Israel tightened
its seal on Lebanon, blasting its air and road links to the outside
world and bringing its offensive to the capital for the first time
to punish Hezbollah and with it, the country for the capture of 2
Israeli soldiers. Israel destroyed the home and office of
Hezbollah's leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah. Lebanese guerrillas
fired a barrage of at least 60 Katyusha rockets throughout the day,
hitting more than a dozen communities across northern Israel.
Israeli warplanes destroyed the building housing the headquarters of
Hezbollah guerrillas in southern Beirut. Hezbollah guerrillas
attacked an Israeli warship that had been firing missiles into
southern Beirut. A senior Israeli intelligence official said Iranian
troops helped Hezbollah fire a missile that damaged the warship off
the Lebanese coast. He also said about 100 Iranian soldiers are in
Lebanon and helped fire the Iranian-made, radar-guided C-802 at the
ship that killed 4 sailors. Deaths in 3 days of fighting rose to 61
people in Lebanon and 10 in Israel.
(AP, 7/14/06)(AP, 7/14/07)(Econ, 11/30/13, p.58)

2006 Jul 15, Israeli warplanes
pounded Hezbollah's south Beirut stronghold and roads around the
country killing at least 33 people. At least 12 Lebanese villagers,
including women and children, were killed in what appeared to be an
Israeli airstrike on a convoy of vehicles fleeing a village near the
border with Israel in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah expanded its
rocket fire, hitting another of Israel's main cities, and Israel
warned that the guerrillas could strike Tel Aviv. At least 88 people
have died in Lebanon, most of them civilians, in the four-day
Israeli offensive, sparked by Hezbollah's capture of two Israeli
soldiers. On the Israeli side, at least 15 have been killed, four
civilians and 11 soldiers.
(AP, 7/15/06)(SSFC, 7/16/06, p.A1)
2006 Jul 15, Arab foreign
ministers held an emergency summit in Cairo over Israel's expanding
assault on Lebanon, the worst Israeli attack on its neighbor in 24
years.
(AP, 7/15/06)

2006 Jul 16,
Lebanese guerrillas fired a relentless barrage of rockets into the
northern Israeli city of Haifa, killing eight people at a railway
depot and wounding seven in a dramatic escalation of a five-day-old
conflict that has shattered hopes for Mideast peace. Israeli
airstrikes reduced entire apartment buildings to rubble and knocked
out electricity in swaths of Beirut. At least 33 people were killed.
(AP, 7/16/06)(SSFC, 7/16/06, p.A1)
2006 Jul 16, Seven Canadians
from the same Montreal family, including four young children, were
killed in Lebanon when Israeli aircraft bombed a house in the
southern village of Aitaroun. 4 other relatives died soon thereafter
from wounds in the same attack.
(AP, 7/17/06)(Reuters, 7/18/06)

2006 Jul 17, Israeli warplanes
pummeled Lebanese infrastructure, killing at least 17 people.
Hezbollah patron Iran said a cease-fire and a prisoner swap were
possible, and the international community signaled willingness to
send peacekeepers to back a diplomatic solution. 3 rounds of rockets
fired by Hezbollah guerrillas struck Haifa, with one destroying a
three-story building and wounding three people. Hezbollah fired a
total of 50 rockets in to Israel. Total deaths in Lebanon reached
210 and 24 in Israel.
(AP, 7/17/06)(WSJ, 7/18/06, p.A1,7)
2006 Jul 17, British PM Tony
Blair and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan called for the deployment
of international forces to stop Hezbollah from bombing Israel, a
proposal that Israel quickly rejected.
(AP, 7/17/06)

2006 Jul 18, Israel struck a
Lebanese army base outside Beirut and flattened a house near the
border, killing 31 people in a new wave of bombings. Hezbollah fired
more rockets at northern Israel, killing one Israeli and wounding
several others. Israel said its offensive in Lebanon could last
several more weeks and involve large numbers of ground forces.
(AP, 7/18/06)(WSJ, 7/19/06, p.A1)

2006 Jul 19, Israeli troops
clashed with Hezbollah guerrillas on the Lebanese side of the
border, while warplanes flattened buildings and killed at least 56
people overnight as fighting entered its second week with the US
signaling it will not push Israel toward a fast cease-fire.
Lebanon's PM Fuad Saniora called for a cease-fire and said that 300
people have been killed, 1,000 have been wounded and a half-million
displaced in Israel's eight-day-old onslaught on Lebanon. Hezbollah
rockets slammed into the Arab-Israeli town of Nazareth killing two
young brothers as they played outside and wounding 18 other people.
(AP, 7/19/06)(Reuters, 7/19/06)(SFC, 7/20/06,
p.A10)

2006 Jul 20, Israeli troops met
fierce resistance from Hezbollah guerrillas as they crossed into
Lebanon to seek tunnels and weapons for a second straight day, and
Israel hinted at a full-scale invasion.
(AP, 7/20/06)

2006 Jul 21, Israel called up
reserve troops and warned civilians to flee Hezbollah-controlled
southern Lebanon, as it prepared for a likely ground invasion to set
up a deep buffer zone. Hezbollah guerrillas fired two volleys of
rockets at Haifa, wounding five people and damaging shops and office
buildings. At least 335 people have been killed in Lebanon in the
Israeli campaign. 34 Israelis also have been killed, including 19
soldiers.
(AP, 7/21/06)

2006 Jul 22, Israeli tanks and
hundreds of troops moved in and out of Lebanon, taking over Maroun
al-Ras village, entering a UN observation post and engaging
Hezbollah militants by land, sea and air. Israeli warplanes blasted
communications and television transmission towers in central and
northern Lebanese mountains. Over 130 rockets struck northern
Israeli, hitting Karmiel, Kiriyat Shemona, Nahariya and smaller
communities such as Bet Hilel, Mayan Baruch and Mashov Am. Five
Israelis were wounded. The Lebanese health ministry reported 362
deaths in Lebanon so far in the onslaught. 34 Israelis also have
been killed.
(AP, 7/22/06)(SSFC, 7/23/06, p.A1)

2006 Jul 23, Israeli warplanes
struck a minibus carrying people fleeing the fighting in southern
Lebanon, killing three people, Lebanese security officials said, and
Israel said it would accept a NATO-led international force to keep
the peace along the border. Hezbollah rockets killed two civilians
in northern Israel. Layal Nejim (23), a photographer working for a
Lebanese magazine, was killed when an Israeli missile exploded near
her taxi.
(AP, 7/23/06)
2006 Jul 23, Syria, one of
Hezbollah's main backers, said it will press for a cease-fire to end
the fighting between Israel and the Islamic militant group but only
in the framework of a broader Middle East peace initiative.
(AP, 7/23/06)

2006 Jul 24, Israeli ground
forces pushed deeper into Lebanon in heavy fighting with Hezbollah
guerrillas. An Israeli Apache helicopter crashed near the Lebanese
border while attempting an emergency landing, and there were two
casualties.
(AP, 7/24/06)
2006 Jul 24, US Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice made a surprise visit to Lebanon to launch
diplomatic efforts aimed at ending 13 days of warfare.
(AP, 7/24/06)

2006 Jul 25, Israeli troops
sealed off the town of Bint Jbail, a Hezbollah stronghold in fierce
fighting in south Lebanon. Warplanes struck Nabatiyeh and destroyed
a house killing seven people, four from the same family. Guerrillas
fired rockets at northern Israel, killing a girl. An Israeli
airstrike killed 4 UN observers at a UNIFIL post in southern
Lebanon. The observers were from Austria, Canada, China and Finland.
Irish observers had warned that airstrikes were too close. UNIFIL
was created in 1978 after Israel's first major invasion of southern
Lebanon and has been there ever since.
(AP, 7/25/06)(Reuters, 7/25/06)(WSJ, 7/27/06,
p.A1)
2006 Jul 25, The first edition
of a newspaper owned by the Iranian version of Hezbollah appeared on
newsstands with messages of support for its Lebanese cousins in
their fight against Israel.
(AP, 7/25/06)
2006 Jul 25, Sri Lanka, which
at 80,000 has the largest contingent of expatriate workers in
Lebanon, wants those trapped in the conflict to stay put and those
who have fled the bombings to return, a minister said.
(AFP, 7/25/06)

2006 Jul 26, Israel suffered
its bloodiest day in Lebanon in its offensive against Hezbollah,
with militants killing at least nine soldiers in a battle for the
strategic town of Bint Jbail.
(AP, 7/26/06)

2006 Jul 27, Top Israeli
Cabinet ministers decided not to expand the country's Lebanon
offensive but ordered the call up of thousands of additional reserve
soldiers to boost the campaign. The decision came as Israeli jets
pounded across Lebanon, extending their air campaign.
(AP, 7/27/06)
2006 Jul 27, Ayman al-Zawahri,
Al-Qaida's No. 2 leader, issued a worldwide call for Muslims to rise
up in a holy war against Israel and join the fighting in Lebanon and
Gaza until Islam reigns from "Spain to Iraq."
(AP, 7/27/06)

2006 Jul 28, Hezbollah
politicians, while expressing reservations, joined their critics in
the government in agreeing to a peace package that includes
strengthening an international force in south Lebanon and disarming
the guerrillas.
(AP, 7/28/06)
2006 Jul 28, Israeli warplanes
and artillery intensified strikes, hitting Hezbollah positions and
crushing houses and roads in towns in southern Lebanon, killing as
many as 12 people. Hezbollah announced it had fired a new rocket,
called the Khaibar-1, striking near the northern Israeli town of
Afula. Beirut said 600 people have been killed in Lebanon, with
confirmed fatalities at 445, since fighting broke out, most of them
Lebanese civilians. 33 Israeli soldiers have died in the fighting
and 19 civilians were killed in Hezbollah's unyielding rocket
attacks on Israel's northern towns.
(AP, 7/28/06)(WSJ, 7/28/06, p.A1)
2006 Jul 28, The UN decided to
remove 50 unarmed observers (UNTSO and UNIFIL) from posts along the
Israeli-Lebanese border and relocate them with lightly armed UN
peacekeepers.
(AP, 7/28/06)

2006 Jul 29, Israel said it had
pulled forces out of Hezbollah's stronghold in south Lebanon after
completing its current operation there. Israeli planes targeted
bridges in southern and eastern Lebanon in new airstrikes,
destroying one in a resort area on the Syrian border. Israel
rejected a request by the UN for a three-day cease-fire in Lebanon
to deliver humanitarian supplies and allow civilians to leave the
war zone.
(AP, 7/29/06)
2006 Jul 29, The Middle East
crisis dominated the first full day of PM Tony Blair's tour of
California, forcing his promotion of British business interests here
to take a back seat. Blair's former foreign secretary, Jack Straw,
condemned Israeli action against Lebanon as "disproportionate" in
the first such comment by a senior British government minister. PM
Blair said an international agreement, leading to a cease-fire in
the Israel-Hezbollah conflict, is possible sometime in the next few
days.
(AFP, 7/30/06)(AP, 7/29/06)

2006 Jul 30, Israeli missiles
hit several buildings in Qana, a southern Lebanon village, as people
slept, killing 29, mostly children, in the deadliest attack in 19
days of fighting. Israeli PM Ehud Olmert expressed "great sorrow"
for the airstrikes but blamed Hezbollah guerrillas for using the
area to launch rockets at Israel. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan
called an emergency meeting of the Security Council. Israel
suspended air attacks on south Lebanon for 48 hours in the face of
widespread outrage over the airstrike.
(AP, 8/3/06)(AP, 7/30/07)

2006 Jul 31, Israeli warplanes
carried out airstrikes in southern Lebanon, hours after agreeing to
temporarily halt raids while investigating a bombing that killed
nearly 60 Lebanese civilians. Israel accidentally killed a Lebanese
soldier when it hit a car that it believed was carrying a senior
Hezbollah official.
(AP, 7/31/06)
2006 Jul 31, The UN scrapped a
meeting of nations that might contribute troops to help stabilize
south Lebanon, a decision that reflected the deep divisions among
key nations on how to end the three-week war between Israel and
Hezbollah.
(AP, 7/31/06)

2006 Aug 1, Heavy fighting
raged in the Lebanese border village of Aita al-Shaab, and Hezbollah
television said 35 Israeli soldiers had been killed or wounded in
the fighting. Israeli warplanes pounded Shiite Lebanese villages in
many areas along the border and struck Hezbollah strongholds deep
inside the country.
(AP, 8/1/06)

2006 Aug 2, Israel pressed the
first full day of a massive new ground attack, sending 8,000 troops
into southern Lebanon and seizing five people it said were Hezbollah
fighters in a dramatic airborne raid on a northeastern town.
Hezbollah retaliated with its deepest strikes yet into Israel,
firing a record number of more than 230 rockets. An Israeli-American
was killed as he fled for home by bicycle, and a stray rocket hit
the West Bank for the first time. People in the Lebanese village of
Al Jamaliyeh, outside the Hezbollah stronghold of Baalbek, used a
front-end loader to carry away some of the dead after a night of
Israeli airstrikes and a commando raid inside Baalbek that residents
said killed at least 15 civilians.
(AP, 8/2/06)(SFC, 8/3/06, p.A1)

2006 Aug 3, A massive wave of
guerrilla rockets pounded northern Israel in a matter of minutes,
killing 8 people. Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah's leader,
offered to stop the attacks if Israel ends its airstrikes. Israel
lost four soldiers in fighting. Israeli military said four Hezbollah
fighters were killed and two wounded. Lebanese security officials
said a missile crashed into a two-story house in the border village
of Taibeh, killing a couple and their daughter. Lebanese PM Fuad
Saniora said Lebanon's death toll in more than three weeks of
Israel-Hezbollah fighting has reached more than 900. France
circulated a revised UN resolution calling for an immediate halt to
Israeli-Hezbollah fighting and spelling out conditions for a
permanent cease-fire in Lebanon.
(AP, 8/3/06)

2006 Aug 4, Israel expanded its
assault on Lebanon, launching its first major attack on the
Christian heartland north of Beirut and severing the last
significant road link to Syria. Hezbollah renewed attacks on
northern Israel, killing two civilians in a barrage of 120 rockets.
An Israeli airstrike hit dozens of farm workers loading vegetables
near the Lebanon-Syria border, killing as many as 33. Five Lebanese
civilians were killed and 19 wounded in the Israeli airstrikes north
of Beirut in Christian areas where Hezbollah has little support.
Hezbollah's leader offered to stop attacking if Israel ends its
airstrikes. Israeli airstrikes flattened two southern Lebanese
houses and more than 50 people were buried in the rubble, security
officials and the state news agency said. Israel denied attacking
the villages.
(AP, 8/4/06)(SFC, 8/5/06, p.A11)

2006 Aug 5, Israeli naval
commandos battled with Hezbollah in the southern port city of Tyre,
while a guerrilla rocket killed a soldier in clashes on the border
and Israeli raids left at least eight people dead in multiple
strikes across the country. The Lebanese government's Higher Relief
Council said 907 Lebanese had been killed in the conflict. 75
Israelis have been killed, 45 soldiers and 30 civilians.
(AP, 8/5/06)
2006 Aug 5, The US and France
reached agreement on a UN Security Council resolution aimed at
ending the fighting between Israel and Lebanese Hezbollah
guerrillas.
(AP, 8/5/06)
2006 Aug 5, Thousands marched
through London to demand a halt to the Lebanon war as the British
government tried to deflect criticism that it has failed to call for
an immediate ceasefire.
(AP, 8/5/06)

2006 Aug 7, The death toll in
an Israeli airstrike on a Shiite neighborhood in south Beirut
reached 41. Across the country 77 Lebanese were killed along with
three Israeli soldiers. The UN said an oil spill caused by Israeli
raids on a Lebanese power plant could rival the 1989 Exxon Valdez
disaster that despoiled the Alaskan coast if not urgently addressed.
the Jiyyeh plant, which was bombed by Israel on July 14 and July 15
a few days into its offensive against Hezbollah. 12,000 tons of
leaking oil had already polluted more than 140 kilometers (87 miles)
of the Lebanese coast and spread north into Syrian waters.
(AP, 8/8/06)(AP, 8/9/06)(AFP, 8/8/06)

2006 Aug 9, Israel's Security
Cabinet approved a wider ground offensive in south Lebanon that was
expected to take 30 days as part of a new push to badly damage
Hezbollah. Al-Jazeera reported that 11 Israeli soldiers were killed
in heavy fighting with Hezbollah guerrillas near the border in south
Lebanon. Israeli's military struck Lebanon's largest Palestinian
refugee camp, killing at least one person and wounding three others.
(AP, 8/9/06)

2006 Aug 10, Israel said it
will hold back on its new ground offensive in Lebanon until the
weekend to give cease-fire efforts another chance. In Jerusalem a
tourist (25) was stabbed to death by an Arab youth near one of the
gates to the walled Old City in what was believed to be a political
attack.
(AP, 8/10/06)

2006 Aug 11, Israeli airstrikes
pounded south Beirut and border crossings to Syria, killing at least
14 people across Lebanon as ground fighting picked up intensity in
the south. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert accepted an emerging
Mideast cease-fire deal and informed the United States of his
decision. An Israeli drone fired at a convoy of refugees fleeing
southern Lebanon, killing at least six people and wounding 16.
(AP, 8/11/06)
2006 Aug 11, The UN Human
Rights Council condemned Israel for "massive bombardment of Lebanese
civilian populations" and other "systematic" human rights
violations, and decided to send a commission to investigate. UN
Resolution 1701 called for Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon and the
disarmament of Hezbollah.
(AP, 8/11/06)(Econ, 8/26/06,
p.11)(www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2006/sc8808.doc.htm)

2006 Aug 12, Israel staged
wide-ranging airstrikes and sent commandos into the Hezbollah
heartland as the UN raced to begin enforcing its new cease-fire
blueprint and stop the heavy fighting still raging in southern
Lebanon. Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah said the militant
organization would abide by the UN cease-fire resolution but would
keep fighting as long as Israeli troops remained in southern
Lebanon. Israel lost 24 soldiers, including five on a helicopter
shot out of the air by guerrillas.
(AP, 8/12/06)(AP, 8/13/06)
2006 Aug 12, The UN Security
Council adopted a resolution seeking a "full cessation" of violence
between Israel and Hezbollah, offering the region its best chance
yet for peace after a month of fighting that has killed more than
800 people and inflamed Mideast tensions.
(AP, 8/12/06)

2006 Aug 13, After a stormy
debate, Israel's Cabinet approved a Mideast cease-fire, agreeing to
silence the army's guns on Aug 14 at 8AM. The Israeli military
embarked on a last-minute push to devastate Hezbollah guerrillas,
rocketing south Beirut with at least 20 missiles. Israeli warplanes
fired missiles into gasoline stations in the southern port city of
Tyre, killing at least 12 people in those and other attacks.
Hezbollah fired more than 150 rockets at northern Israel, killing an
Israeli man. Two Israeli air raids on a village in Lebanon's eastern
Bekaa Valley killed at least seven people and wounded nearly two
dozen.
(AP, 8/13/06)

2006 Aug 14, Israeli soldiers
killed six Hezbollah fighters in three skirmishes in Lebanon after
the UN-imposed cease-fire took effect. The clashes came as Lebanese
civilians defied an Israeli travel ban and streamed back to their
homes in war-ravaged areas. Lebanese, Israeli and UN officers met on
the border to discuss the withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern
Lebanon and the deployment of the Lebanese army in the region.
Lebanon said nearly 791 people were killed since the fighting began.
Israel said 116 soldiers and 39 civilians were killed in fighting or
from Hezbollah rockets in the 34-day war.
(AP, 8/14/06)

2006 Aug 15, Israel began
slowly withdrawing its forces from southern Lebanon and made plans
to hand over its captured territory as hopes were raised that a
UN-imposed cease-fire would stick, despite early tests on its first
day.
(AP, 8/15/06)

2006 Aug 16, Top foreign
diplomats planned the dispatch of a 15,000-strong international
force to enforce a cease-fire in southern Lebanon, but the
government was divided over whether Hezbollah should lay down its
arms or even withdraw them from the border with Israel.
(AP, 8/16/06)

2006 Aug 17, Lebanese troops,
tanks and armored vehicles deployed south of the Litani River, a key
provision of the UN cease-fire plan that ended fighting between
Israel and Hezbollah. The deployment marks a first step toward
extending government control in a region Lebanese troops have
largely avoided for four decades. A Middle East Airlines passenger
jet flew into Beirut airport from Jordan as officials partially
lifted a 36-day Israeli air blockade.
(AP, 8/17/06)

2006 Aug 18, The Lebanese army
reached the country's southern border with Israel for the first time
in decades, sending a lone jeep on patrol through Kfar Kila, a
battered stronghold of support for Hezbollah militants. At least 845
Lebanese were killed in the 34-day war: 743 civilians, 34 soldiers
and 68 Hezbollah. Israel says it killed about 530 guerrillas. On the
Israeli side, 157 were killed, 118 soldiers and 39 civilians, many
from the 3,970 Hezbollah rockets. The Lebanese government estimated
infrastructure damages at $2.5 billion. The Lebanese death toll was
later raised to 1200 and economic costs put to some $12
billion.
(AP, 8/18/06)(SFC, 8/19/06, p.C1)(Econ, 11/11/06,
p.51)

2006 Aug 19, Israeli commandos
raided a Hezbollah stronghold deep inside Lebanon, sparking a fierce
clash with militants that left one Israeli soldier dead. Lebanon
called the raid a "flagrant violation" of the UN-brokered
cease-fire, while Israel said it was aimed at disrupting arms
smuggling from Iran and Syria. A Lebanese civilian was killed when
unexploded Israeli munitions from the offensive detonated in the
village of Ras al-Ein, outside Tyre.
(AP, 8/19/06)
2006 Aug 19, French soldiers
landed in Lebanon, the first reinforcements for an expanded UN
peacekeeping force tasked with keeping the truce in the
Israel-Hezbollah conflict. About 50 French troops, military
engineers, were to prepare for the arrival of 200 more soldiers
expected next week.
(AP, 8/19/06)

2006 Aug 20, Lebanese PM Fuad
Saniora called the Israeli bombing campaign "a crime against
humanity," and Lebanon's defense minister warned any group that
breaks the Middle East cease-fire will be dealt with harshly.
(AP, 8/20/06)

2006 Aug 21, Police raided the
official residence of Israeli President Moshe Katsav as part of a
sexual harassment investigation, seizing computers and documents.
Israeli troops shot two Hezbollah guerrillas during a clash in the
southern Lebanese village of Chamaa.
(AP, 8/21/06)(AP, 8/22/06)

2006 Aug 23, Syria opposed
deployment of an international force along its border to prevent
arms shipments to Hezbollah, and Israel called the situation in
Lebanon "explosive." In southern Lebanon 3 Lebanese soldiers were
killed while they dismantled an unexploded missile. An Israeli
soldier was killed and three others wounded in southern Lebanon when
their tank drove over a land mine.
(AP, 8/23/06)(AP, 8/24/06)

2006 Aug 24, Jihad Hamad (20),
the second main suspect in a failed plot to bomb two German trains,
was arrested in his native Lebanon after surrendering to police.
(AP, 8/24/06)

2006 Aug 25, The UN said
unexploded cluster bomb litter homes, gardens and highways in south
Lebanon, as the US State Department reportedly investigated whether
Israel's use of the American-made weapons violated secret agreements
with the United States.
(AP, 8/25/06)
2006 Aug 25, German police
arrested a 3rd suspect in connection with a failed attempt to blow
up two trains. Lebanese authorities picked up a 4th man believed to
have been involved.
(AP, 8/25/06)

2006 Aug 30, Lebanese PM Fuad
Saniora said that he refused to have any direct contact with Israel
and that Lebanon would be the last Arab country to ever sign a peace
deal with the Jewish state. Jan Egeland, the UN humanitarian chief,
accused Israel of "shocking" and "completely immoral" behavior for
dropping large numbers of cluster bombs on Lebanon when a cease-fire
in its war with Hezbollah was in sight.
(AP, 8/30/06)

2006 Aug 31, The Israeli army
said that it has transferred control over a portion of the
Israel-Lebanon border to Lebanese and international troops for the
first time in two decades.
(AP, 8/31/06)

2006 Sep 1, Spain's Cabinet
approved sending 1,100 troops to the UN peacekeeping force in
Lebanon, calling it a "legitimate" mission to help maintain peace in
the region.
(AP, 9/1/06)
2006 Sep 1, UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan said that Syria had pledged to step up
border patrols and work with the Lebanese army to stop the flow of
weapons to Hezbollah.
(AP, 9/1/06)

2006 Sep 2, Hezbollah announced
the death of Hajj Ali Mohammed Saleh Bilal, a military commander,
from wounds suffered in monthlong fighting with Israel.
(AP, 9/2/06)
2006 Sep 2, Italian soldiers
poured into Lebanon, part of the first large contingent of
international troops dispatched to boost the UN force keeping the
peace between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas.
(AP, 9/2/06)
2006 Sep 2, Indonesia said it
will send up to 1,000 troops to southern Lebanon by the month's end,
after Israel dropped objections to its participation in the U.N.
peacekeeping force.
(AP, 9/3/06)

2006 Sep 4, In Lebanon US civil
rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson met with Hezbollah officials and
called on them to show proof that two captured Israeli soldiers are
still alive. A UN spokesman said Secretary-General Kofi Annan has
agreed to requests by Hezbollah and Israel that he mediate in
negotiations over the release of two abducted Israeli soldiers.
Qatar announced that it would contribute 200 to 300 troops to the UN
peacekeeping force in Lebanon, making the Persian Gulf state the
first Arab country to commit soldiers to the peace effort in
Lebanon.
(AP, 9/4/06)

2006 Sep 5, Israeli forces left
five villages in southern Lebanon and were replaced by Lebanese
troops, who also moved into the center of a Hezbollah stronghold
devastated by weeks of fighting.
(AP, 9/5/06)
2006 Sep 5, In south Lebanon a
remote-controlled bomb wounded a senior police intelligence officer
who played a key role in the investigation into the slaying of a
former Lebanese prime minister. Four of the officer's aides and
bodyguards were killed in the sophisticated attack.
(AP, 9/5/06)
2006 Sep 5, Turkey became the
first Muslim country with diplomatic ties to Israel to pledge troops
to an expanding international peacekeeping force that will monitor a
fragile cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah.
(AP, 9/6/06)

2006 Sep 7, Workers at
Lebanon's only airport prepared to receive a full flow of commercial
flights. Israel began lifting its air blockade of Lebanon, but the
naval blockade will remain in place until troops from the new UN
international force are in place.
(AP, 9/7/06)

2006 Sep 18, Premier Wen Jiabao
said China will increase its peacekeeping force in Lebanon to 1,000
and double the humanitarian aid it has pledged.
(AP, 9/18/06)
2006 Sep 18, Israel said it
will consider freeing Palestinian prisoners and releasing millions
of dollars in tax rebates to Palestinians if their government
moderates its hardline views. Israel charged three Hezbollah members
arrested in Lebanon during the recent war with murder for
involvement in deadly attacks on soldiers.
(AP, 9/18/06)

2006 Sep 22, Some 800,000
Hezbollah supporters packed a 37-acre square in the suburbs of
Beirut to hear leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah. In his first public
appearance since the start of his group's 34-day war with Israel, he
said his group has more than 20,000 rockets, and that an increased
UN peacekeeping force will not hurt its guerrillas' arsenal.
(SFC, 9/23/06, p.A7)(AP, 9/25/06)

2006 Sep 23, The TV series “The
Renegades,” directed by Najdat Anzour of Syria, began showing in
Lebanon and the rest of the Arab world. It fictionalized the
devastating effects of terrorism on Muslim families.
(SFC, 10/4/06, p.A7)

2006 Sep 24, Samir Geagea, an
anti-Syrian Christian leader, dismissed Hezbollah's claims of
victory in its war with Israel as tens of thousands of his
supporters rallied in a show of strength that highlighted Lebanon's
sharp divisions.
(AP, 9/24/06)

2006 Oct 1, The Israeli army
abandoned positions in Lebanon, withdrawing the last of its troops
from its neighbor and fulfilling a key condition of the Aug. 14
cease-fire that ended a monthlong war against Hezbollah.
(AP, 10/1/06)

2006 Oct 6, In Lebanon police
clashed with hundreds of rioters protesting attempts to demolish
illegal housing in a southern suburb of Beirut. One person was
killed and at least 16 were wounded.
(AP, 10/6/06)

2006 Oct 15, In Lebanon a small
grenade exploded after it was fired at a building near UN offices in
a downtown Beirut square injuring four people.
(AP, 10/15/06)

2006 Oct 22, An Israeli Cabinet
minister said the Israeli army used phosphorous artillery shells
against Hezbollah guerrilla targets during their war in Lebanon this
summer, confirming Lebanese allegations for the first time. Israel's
defense minister said that air force flights over Lebanon would
continue because arms smuggling to Lebanese guerrillas has not
stopped.
(AP, 10/22/06)

2006 Oct 31, A joint British
and Lebanese initiative in London launched the world's first
qualification covering all aspects of Islamic finance. The Islamic
Finance Qualification (IFQ) was developed by British industry body
the Securities and Investment Institute (SII) and Lebanese business
school Ecole Superieure des Affaires.
(AFP, 10/31/06)

2006 Nov 5, A bomb exploded
near police barracks in Beirut, the latest in a series of attacks
targeting police in the Lebanese capital.
(AP, 11/5/06)

2006 Nov 10, A first batch of
Indonesian troops arrived in Beirut to join a UN peacekeeping force,
whose commander warned of growing tensions in south Lebanon.
(AFP, 11/10/06)

2006 Nov 13, The Lebanese
government approved a UN draft setting up an international tribunal
to try suspects in the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik
Hariri. A London-based Arabic newspaper said Al-Qaida has
purportedly issued a statement threatening to topple Lebanon's
"corrupt" Western-backed government.
(AP, 11/13/06)

2006 Nov 14, The UN called
Lebanon's approval of an international tribunal for the suspected
killers of former PM Rafik Hariri "an important step" toward
fulfilling the requirements of a Security Council resolution.
(AP, 11/14/06)

2006 Nov 19, In Lebanon Sheik
Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah's leader, urged his followers to prepare
for mass demonstrations to topple the government if it ignores the
militant group's demand to form a national unity coalition.
(AP, 11/19/06)

2006 Nov 23, In Lebanon allies
of Pierre Gemayel, a slain Christian government minister, turned his
funeral into a powerful demonstration of anger against Syria as some
800,000 jammed downtown Beirut to pay their respects.
(AP, 11/23/06)

2006 Nov 24, In Lebanon
factories, banks and schools closed on orders from business leaders,
who demanded a resolution to the political crisis before it spirals
into wider violence. A cluster bomb left over from Israel's war
against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon wounded two members of an
international team of land mine-clearing experts.
(AP, 11/24/06)(AP, 11/25/06)

2006 Nov 25, Hezbollah renewed
its threat to stage mass protests aimed at bringing down Lebanon's
US-backed government as the Cabinet scheduled meeting to vote on an
international tribunal to try suspects in the killing of a former
prime minister.
(AP, 11/25/06)
2006 Nov 25, A third batch of
Indonesians left to join a UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon,
bringing the Asian nation's Middle East deployment to more than 830
troops.
(AP, 11/25/06)
2006 Nov 25, A UN agency said
that Israel laid mines in Lebanon during this summer's war between
the Jewish state and the Lebanon-based Hezbollah group, the first
time Israel has been accused of planting mines during the latest
fighting.
(AP, 11/25/06)

2006 Nov 27, A UN food agency
said Lebanon's agriculture sector suffered about $280 million in
damage during this summer's conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.
(AP, 11/27/06)

2006 Dec 1, In Lebanon at least
a million people loyal to Hezbollah and its pro-Syrian opposition
allies massed in downtown Beirut seeking to force the resignation of
Western-backed PM Fuad Saniora, who was holed up in his office
ringed by hundreds of police and combat troops.
(AP, 12/1/06)(SFC, 12/2/06, p.A1)

2006 Dec 2, In Lebanon
thousands of Hezbollah supporters camped out in tents in central
Beirut as the Shiite Muslim guerrilla group and its allies kept up
the pressure on the US-backed government of Fuad Saniora to resign.
(AP, 12/2/06)

2006 Dec 7, Lebanon's
Hezbollah-led opposition called for its supporters to take to the
streets this weekend in a massive show of force, stepping up the
pressure on the US-backed government, which has vowed not to give in
to protesters.
(AP, 12/7/06)

2006 Dec 12, The UN inquiry
into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik
Hariri said it has now identified suspects and witnesses and found
possible links to 14 other murders or attempted murders in Lebanon
in the last two years.
(AP, 12/12/06)

2006 Dec 15, In Beirut Mahmoud
Komati, deputy chief of Hezbollah's politburo, said that around 250
members of the guerrilla group were killed in the summer war with
Israel, the highest toll acknowledged by the Shiite Muslim movement.
(AP, 12/15/06)

2006 Dec 21, In Lebanon police
arrested four people and seized a large quantities of weapons,
explosives and fuses in raids against a pro-Syrian party.
(AP, 12/21/06)

2006 Dec 28, Tallies by
government agencies, humanitarian groups and The Associated Press
said more than 1,000 Lebanese civilians and combatants died during
the summer war between Israel's army and Hezbollah guerrillas.
(AP, 12/28/06)

2007 Jan 23, Hezbollah-led
protesters paralyzed Lebanon, clashing with government supporters
and burning tires and cars on roads in and around the capital to
enforce a general strike aimed at toppling US-backed Prime Minister
Fuad Saniora. Three people were killed and more than 170 wounded.
(AP, 1/24/07)

2007 Jan 25, International
donors pledged $7.6 billion in aid and loans at a conference to
raise money for Lebanon's U.S.-backed prime minister and his
economic reform program. The US pledged to more than triple its
economic aid to $770 million including $220 million in military aid.
Government and opposition supporters clashed at a Beirut university
campus. At least 3 people were reported killed.
(AP, 1/25/07)(WSJ, 1/26/07, p.A1)

2007 Jan 30, The Saudi foreign
minister said Saudi Arabia and Iran are working together to try to
calm the crises in Iraq and Lebanon.
(AP, 1/30/07)

2007 Feb 13, In Lebanon bombs
packed with metal pellets tore through two commuter buses in a
mainly Christian area, a day before the second anniversary of former
Prime Minister Rafik Hariri's assassination. At least 3 people were
killed and 20 wounded in the coordinated attack.
(AP, 2/13/07)

2007 Mar 8, Lebanese
parliamentary leaders met for the first time in four months in an
effort to end a power struggle that has divided the government and
paralyzed the nation.
(AP, 3/9/07)

2007 Mar 15, Interpol said it
plans to issue international requests for the arrest of five
prominent Iranians and a Lebanese militant in connection with the
1994 bombing of a Jewish cultural center in Argentina.
(AP, 3/15/07)

2007 Apr 18, The UN Security
Council expressed "serious concern" at mounting reports of weapons
being smuggled from Syria to Lebanon and authorized an independent
mission to evaluate monitoring of the border between the two
countries.
(AP, 4/18/07)

2007 Apr 26, Police in Lebanon
found the bodies of a man and a 12-year-old boy who disappeared
earlier this week, an incident that has shaken the country and
sparked fears of renewed sectarian violence.
(AP, 4/26/07)

2007 May 14, Lebanon's prime
minister asked the UN Security Council to impose an international
tribunal to prosecute suspects in the assassination of former
premier Rafik Hariri.
(AP, 5/14/07)

2007 May 20, Lebanese tanks
pounded a militant group's headquarters in the Nahr al-Bared
Palestinian refugee camp near Tripoli after the northern city's
worst clashes in two decades killed 13 soldiers and 17 militants.
The raid that triggered the clashes was part of a police search for
suspects in a bank robbery a day earlier in Amyoun, a town southeast
of Tripoli. Gunmen of the radical jihadist faction known as Fatah
al-Islam made off with $125,000 in cash in the robbery. The siege
lasted 106 days leaving 47 civilians, 167 Lebanese soldiers and some
287 guerrillas dead.
(AP, 5/20/07)(Econ, 5/26/07, p.47)(Econ, 5/10/08,
p.57)

2007 May 21, Lebanese troops
pounded a Palestinian refugee camp with artillery and tank fire for
a second day, raising huge palls of smoke as they battled a militant
group suspected of ties to al-Qaida in the worst eruption of
violence since the end of the 1975-90 civil war.
(AP, 5/21/07)

2007 May 22, In Lebanon a
convoy of UN relief supplies was hit in renewed fighting as it tried
to enter the Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr el-Bared. At least 15
civilians were left dead or wounded. Lebanon asked the US for $280
million in military assistance.
(AP, 5/22/07)(WSJ, 5/23/07, p.A1)

2007 May 23, In Lebanon
hundreds of Palestinian civilians carrying their belongings in
plastic bags trickled out of a besieged refugee camp, taking
advantage of a truce in fighting that mostly held overnight.
(AP, 5/23/07)

2007 May 24, In Lebanon
sporadic gunfire erupted inside the Nahr el-Bared refugee camp where
Islamic militants are holed up after refusing an ultimatum by
Lebanon's defense minister to surrender or face a military
onslaught. Lebanon's leader vowed to uproot the fighters. The family
of Shaker Youssef al-Absi, the Palestinian who heads the shadowy
militant group blamed for this week's violence in Lebanon, said he
is not a terrorist but a nationalist who seeks an end to Israel's
occupation of Palestinian lands.
(AP, 5/24/07)

2007 May 30, A UN resolution
gave the Lebanese parliament a last chance to establish a tribunal
to prosecute the killers of former PM Rafik Hariri. If it doesn't
act by June 10, the UN decision will automatically "enter into
force." A military judge filed terrorism charges against 20
suspected members of an Islamic militant group fighting Lebanese
troops at a Palestinian refugee camp.
(AP, 5/31/07)

2007 Jun 1, Dozens of Lebanese
army tanks and armored carriers moved toward a Palestinian refugee
camp in northern Lebanon in pursuit of Islamic militants holed up
inside. 19 people died in some of the heaviest fighting since
violence broke out on May 20.
(AP, 6/1/07)(WSJ, 6/2/07, p.A1)

2007 Jun 2, The Lebanese air
force joined tanks and artillery in pounding Islamic militant
hideouts on the second day of an intensifying offensive to uproot
al-Qaida-inspired gunmen barricaded in a Palestinian refugee camp.
(AP, 6/2/07)

2007 Jun 3, Heavy gunfire rang
out from inside a bombed out Palestinian refugee camp as the
Lebanese army pounded Islamic militants holed up inside during the
third day of a military offensive aimed at crushing the
al-Qaida-inspired group.
(AP, 6/3/07)

2007 Jun 4, Violence sparked by
a two-week old confrontation between the Lebanese army and al-Qaida
inspired militants spread to a second Palestinian refugee camp in
the southern part of the country, killing two soldiers.
(AP, 6/4/07)

2007 Jun 6, A Palestinian
security force fanned out in two neighborhoods of the Ein el-Hilweh
refugee camp in southern Lebanon to prevent further clashes between
Islamic militants and Lebanese troops. Maj. Gen. Khaled Aref, a
senior Fatah commander based in Ein el-Hilweh, said on Lebanese
Broadcasting Corp. television that about 20 Fatah Islam fighters had
surrendered to his group in besieged Nahr el-Bared.
(AP, 6/6/07)

2007 Jun 7, In eastern Lebanon
troops discovered three vehicles rigged with explosives during a
raid on a hideout.
(AP, 6/7/07)

2007 Jun 8, Lebanese troops
battled al-Qaida-inspired militants in a Palestinian refugee camp
where violence has raged for three weeks. The clashes in northern
Lebanon came hours after a bombing in a Christian town northeast of
Beirut killed at least one man.
(AP, 6/8/07)

2007 Jun 9, Lebanon's army
pounded Islamic militants hiding in a Palestinian refugee camp in
renewed heavy clashes following a few days of intermittent fighting.
(AP, 6/9/07)

2007 Jun 11, In Lebanon 2 local
Red Cross workers helping coordinate negotiations between the
Lebanese army and Islamic militants were shot to death at the Nahr
el-Bared camp. Fighting also killed 4 soldiers.
(AP, 6/11/07)(WSJ, 6/12/07, p.A1)

2007 Jun 13, In Lebanon
lawmaker Walid Eido, a prominent anti-Syrian legislator killed by a
car bomb, which also killed his 35-year-old son, two bodyguards and
six passers-by.
(AP, 6/14/07)

2007 Jun 19, A Lebanese soldier
was killed in clashes with al-Qaida-inspired militants in a
Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon.
(AP, 6/19/07)

2007 Jun 24, Lebanese troops
raided an apartment complex suspected of housing Islamic militants
in the northern port city of Tripoli, sparking a gunbattle that left
10 people dead, including a soldier and 6 gunmen. A bombing killed 6
members of Spanish UN peacekeepers, including 3 Colombians, and
seriously wounded two others.
(AP, 6/24/07)(AP, 6/25/07)

2007 Jun 29, In Lebanon
government soldiers shot at angry Palestinian demonstrators trying
to march home to their besieged camp, and two people were reported
killed and 29 wounded.
(AP, 6/30/07)

2007 Jun, The UN numbered
Palestinians in Lebanon at 420,000, but a quiet exodus was believed
to have reduced the number to 250,000. They were overwhelmingly
Sunni Muslims and had no right to own property, and no right to
receive state schooling or medical care.
(Econ, 6/2/07, p.46)

2007 Jul 12, The Lebanese army
pounded a Palestinian refugee camp with artillery fire, but the
military denied reports that the action was part of a final assault
on the al-Qaida-inspired Islamic militants barricaded inside.
(AP, 7/12/07)

2007 Jul 13, In north Lebanon
Islamic militants fired back volleys of rockets at the Lebanese army
as troops pounded the remaining suspected hideouts of the Fatah
Islam fighters holed up in a Palestinian refugee camp.
(AP, 7/13/07)

2007 Jul 14, Lebanon's
political factions including the pro-Syrian opposition Hezbollah
began two days of talks in France to try to ease the deadlock
paralyzing the nation.
(AP, 7/14/07)

2007 Jul 15, Militants holed up
in a Palestinian refugee camp in north Lebanon fired more rockets
that landed in farm fields outside the camp as the army bombarded
suspected hideouts inside the besieged settlement. Politicians from
Lebanon's divided factions held a second day of talks in France to
try to ease 8 months of deadlock.
(AP, 7/15/07)(AFP, 7/15/07)

2007 Jul 16, In northern
Lebanon fierce fighting erupted at a besieged Palestinian refugee
camp as army troops pounded the remaining hideouts of
al-Qaida-inspired militants holed up inside with artillery and tank
fire. 4 soldiers were killed in fighting. Troops captured two
militants while pursuing the fighters in the camp's old
neighborhoods.
(AP, 7/16/07)(AP, 7/17/07)

2007 Jul 17, In Lebanon
militants continued to resist the army's advance. Security officials
said Army troops are making "significant" gains in their
long-running battle against al-Qaida-inspired fighters barricaded
inside a Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon. At least 60
militants and more than 20 civilians have been killed in fighting
since May 20.
(AP, 7/17/07)

2007 Jul 29, France's visiting
foreign minister succeeded in bringing together rival Lebanese
factions who have had no contact for months but said he had not
reached a breakthrough to ease the country's political crisis.
(AP, 7/29/07)

2007 Jul 30, In northern
Lebanon the army unleashed tank and artillery fire on the remaining
hideouts of al-Qaida-inspired militants holed up in a Palestinian
refugee camp.
(AP, 7/30/07)

2007 Jul, In Beirut, Lebanon,
construction firms broke ground in the Dahiya district, a Shiite
enclave razed by bombs during last year’s war with Israel. Hezbollah
organized the project by collection war-compensation checks from
volunteering residents.
(WSJ, 9/17/07, p.A1)

2007 Aug 1, Two Lebanese
soldiers were killed in heavy fighting with al-Qaida-inspired
militants holed up in a Palestinian refugee camp in northern
Lebanon.
(AP, 8/2/07)

2007 Aug 5, Army and police
patrols stood guard as thousands of Lebanese went to polling
stations to vote in a key election to replace two assassinated
lawmakers. A little-known opposition candidate defeated a former
president in a tense parliament by-election that showed the
divisions among Lebanon's once-dominant Christians. Pro-Syrian
Parliament speaker Nabih Berri has said he would not recognize the
results of the two by-elections because they were called by what he
and the rest of the opposition consider an illegitimate government.
The by-elections were held despite the refusal of the president,
Lahoud, to approve them, as required.
(AP, 8/5/07)(AP, 8/6/07)

2007 Aug 6, Lebanon’s
government said that police have killed Abu Hureira, the deputy
commander of al-Qaida inspired militants. He was killed a few days
ago by police in the northern port city of Tripoli, near the Nahr
el-Bared refugee camp where Fatah Islam militants have been fighting
Lebanese soldiers for more than two months.
(AP, 8/6/07)

2007 Aug 17, The UN announced
that the Netherlands has agreed to host the tribunal that will
prosecute suspects in the assassination of former Lebanese PM Rafik
Hariri.
(AP, 8/17/07)

2007 Aug 18, In northern
Lebanon gunbattles with Islamic extremists in a Palestinian refugee
camp left one soldier dead. Another died of wounds the next day.
(AP, 8/19/07)

2007 Aug 23, A cluster bomb
left over from last year's Hezbollah-Israel war exploded in southern
Lebanon, killing a Lebanese mine-clearing expert and wounding three
others who were trying to dismantle it.
(AP, 8/23/07)

2007 Aug 24, A deal was reached
with Islamic extremists holed up in a Palestinian refugee camp in
northern Lebanon to allow their families to leave the besieged area.
The UN Security Council voted unanimously to keep peacekeepers in
Lebanon for another 12 months.
(AP, 8/24/07)(AP, 8/24/07)

2007 Aug 31, Lebanese army
helicopters stepped up raids on al-Qaida-inspired Islamic militants
barricaded in a Palestinian refugee camp in the country's north
after five soldiers were killed over the last 2 days.
(AP, 8/31/07)

2007 Sep 2, In Lebanon the last
militant stronghold of a Palestinian refugee camp devastated by more
than 3 months of fighting fell to the army. The army killed 39
militants and captured at least 15 others as they tried to break out
of the Nahr el-Bared camp. 5 soldiers were killed in the 2-day
fight, raising to 158 the number of troops killed in the conflict
that began May 20. The dead also included over 20 civilians and over
60 militants. Shaker Abbsi, leader of the Fatah al Islam militants,
managed to escape.
(AP, 9/2/07)(SFC, 9/3/07, p.A13)(SFC, 9/11/07,
p.A4)

2007 Sep 19, Antoine Ghanem
(64), an anti-Syrian lawmaker from the Christian Phalange Party, was
killed in a blast in Beirut. Six other people also died.
(AP, 9/10/07)

2007 Oct 1, In Lebanon Nasser
Ismail, a suspected senior commander of the Fatah Islam militant
group, was captured by Palestinian refugees and turned over to the
Lebanese military after he spent weeks in hiding.
(AP, 10/1/07)

2007 Oct 20,
The foreign ministers of France, Italy and Spain met with
Lebanon's feuding political leaders in a bid to break a long-running
deadlock that is preventing the election of a president.
(AP, 10/20/07)

2007 Nov 13, In a letter to the
UN Security Council, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon nominated
Canadian prosecutor Daniel Bellemare to lead the UN investigation
into the 2005 killing of former Lebanese PM Rafik al-Hariri.
(Reuters, 11/13/07)

2007 Nov 23, Lebanon's
parliament failed to elect a successor to President Emile Lahoud
just hours before he was set to leave office after it was unable to
convene due to an opposition boycott. Emile Lahoud left office
without a successor after announcing he was handing over security
powers to the army.
(AP, 11/23/07)(AP, 11/23/08)

2007 Nov 24, Lebanon awoke a
republic without a president amid mounting worries over a power
vacuum that has intensified the nation's yearlong political turmoil.
(AP, 11/24/07)

2007 Nov 27, Lebanon's top
Shiite cleric declared that a Muslim woman is allowed to fight back
in self-defense if she is hit by her husband, in a ruling rare for
the region's male-dominated Islamic society.
(AP, 11/27/07)

2007 Nov 28, A lawmaker said
the largest bloc in Lebanon's deadlocked parliament has dropped its
opposition to the army chief becoming president, bringing Gen.
Michel Suleiman a step closer to being the new head of state and
ending a yearlong political crisis.
(AP, 11/28/07)

2007 Dec 12, A car bomb attack
killed one of Lebanon's top generals and at least two other people.
Brig. Gen. Francois Hajj (55), a top Maronite Catholic in the
command, was considered a leading candidate to succeed the head of
the military, Gen. Michel Suleiman, if Suleiman is elected
president.
(AP, 12/12/07)

2007 Dec 30, President Nicolas
Sarkozy said France will have no more contact with Syria until
Damascus shows its willingness to let Lebanon end its current crisis
and appoint a new president.
(AP, 12/30/07)

2007 Bernard Rougier’s
“Everyday Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam Among Palestinians in
Lebanon” was published in English. The French version (Le Jihad au
quotidien) was initially published in 2004.
(WSJ, 6/26/07, p.D5)
2007 Nassim Nicholas Taleb
(b.1960), Lebanese writer, authored “The Black Swan: The Impact of
the Highly Improbable.” Here he wrote “Don’t ask the barber if you
need a haircut – and don’t ask an academic if what he does is
relevant.” A review by the Sunday Times called it one of the twelve
most influential books since World War II.
(Econ, 6/2/07,
p.92)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nassim_Nicholas_Taleb)(Econ,
5/16/15, p.55)

2008 Jan 2, In Lebanon Sheik
Hassan Nasrallah, the leader Hezbollah, declared no president will
be elected unless his opposition party gets veto power in the future
government.
(AP, 1/2/08)

2008 Jan 5, Syria joined other
Arab nations in endorsing the head of Lebanon's army as that
country's next president, putting pressure on the Lebanese
opposition to drop demands that have blocked a compromise over the
post.
(AP, 1/5/08)

2008 Jan 8, Two rockets fired
from Lebanon struck northern Israel overnight, expanding the
violence that has erupted on Israel's other borders ahead of
President Bush's visit to the region. No injuries were reported.
(AP, 1/8/08)

2008 Jan 15, An explosion
targeted a US Embassy vehicle in northern Beirut, killing four
Lebanese and injuring a local embassy employee.
(AP, 1/15/08)

2008 Jan 19, In Lebanon Sheik
Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah's reclusive leader, claimed the militant
group had the remains of Israeli soldiers killed in Lebanon during
the 2006 war, saying the dead were left behind "in our villages and
fields."
(AP, 1/19/08)

2008 Jan 25, A car bomb ripped
through eastern Beirut, killing Capt. Wissam Eid, Lebanon's top
anti-terrorism investigator, as he returned from a meeting on the
probe into the 2005 assassination of a former prime minister. Three
others died in the blast.
(AP, 1/25/08)

2008 Jan 30, The final Winograd
Commission report was announced in Binyanei HaUma in Jerusalem. It
had been commissioned to inquire into Israel’s 2006 war in Lebanon.
(Econ, 2/2/08,
p.56)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winograd_Commission)

2008 Feb 2, A Lebanese
prosecutor issued arrest warrants for 11 soldiers and six civilians
in connection with Jan 27 clashes between troops and Shiite Muslim
protesters that left 7 people dead.
(AP, 2/2/08)

2008 Feb 3, Israeli forces
opened fire across the Lebanese border, killing one person and
wounding another. The Israeli military said it was responding to
fire apparently from drug smugglers on the Lebanese side.
(AP, 2/4/08)

2008 Feb 12, In Syria Imad
Mughniyeh (45), the suspected mastermind of dramatic attacks on the
US Embassy and US Marine barracks that killed hundreds of Americans
in Lebanon in the 1980s, died in a car bombing. Hezbollah and its
Iranian backers blamed Israel for the killing. Israel denied
involvement and said it was looking into the death. Mughniyeh, a
Lebanese Shia, was recruited by Ali Hassan Salameh (d.1979), the
chief of operations officer of Black September. In 2015 the
Washington Post reported that the CIA and Israel's spy agency Mossad
were behind the plot.
(AP, 2/13/08)(Econ, 6/7/14, p.88)(AFP, 1/31/15)

2008 Feb 29, Hezbollah
denounced the deployment of US warships off Lebanon and said it
won't be intimidated. The US-backed Lebanese government distanced
itself from the military move.
(AP, 2/29/08)

2008 Mar 4, Israel has said
Hezbollah is rearming and has an arsenal that includes 10,000
long-range rockets and 20,000 short-range rockets in southern
Lebanon, according to a report from Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
(AP, 3/4/08)

2008 May 6, Lebanon’s
government declared Hezbollah’s military telecommunications network
illegal and said it was a threat to state security. The cabinet
removed Beirut airport’s security chief over alleged ties to
Hezbollah.
(WSJ, 5/7/08, p.A1)(AP, 5/8/08)

2008 May 7, Hezbollah
opposition supporters and government backers exchanged gunfire and
threw stones as a strike by the Shiite militant group paralyzed
large parts of Beirut. Labor unions had called for the strike after
rejecting a last-minute pay raise offer by the government.
(AP, 5/7/08)

2008 May 8, In Lebanon violence
spread outside the capital. Sunnis and Shiites exchanged gunfire in
the village of Saadnayel in the eastern Bekaa Valley. Hezbollah's
leader Hassan Nasrallah said a government decision to declare the
Shiite militant group's telecommunications network illegal amounted
to a declaration of war. At least four people were killed and eight
wounded Beirut.
(AP, 5/8/08)(AP, 5/9/08)

2008 May 9, Shiite Hezbollah
gunmen seized nearly all of the Lebanese capital's Muslim sector
from Sunni foes loyal to the US-backed government in the country's
worst sectarian clashes since the 15-year civil war.
(AP, 5/9/08)

2008 May 10, Lebanon's army
command ordered troops to establish security in the capital and
called on all parties to withdraw their gunmen from the streets. An
army statement said an airport security chief fired by the
government for alleged ties to Hezbollah will be kept on. A Shiite
Muslim shop owner opened fire on a funeral procession, killing two
people and wounding six others in a Sunni neighborhood. A total of
25 people have been killed and dozens wounded in the recent
violence.
(AP, 5/10/08)

2008 May 11, In Lebanon heavy
fighting broke out between supporters of the Western-backed
government and opposition followers in the central mountains
overlooking the capital. Paramedics said at least 11 people were
killed in fighting in the mountains overlooking Beirut.
(AP, 5/11/08)(AP, 5/12/08)

2008 May 12, In Lebanon heavy
fighting broke out between government supporters and opponents in
Tripoli, where the two sides battled with rocket-propelled grenades,
heavy machine guns and mortars.
(AP, 5/12/08)

2008 May 13, The Lebanese army
expanded its troop deployment to several tense areas around the
country, saying its soldiers would use force if needed to impose
order after clashes between the US-backed government and
Hezbollah-led opposition.
(AP, 5/13/08)

2008 May 15, The Hezbollah-led
opposition and US-backed government reached a deal to end Lebanon's
worst violence since the 1975-90 civil war, now that the Cabinet has
reversed measures aimed at reining in the Iranian-backed militants.
The violence had left at least 81 people dead.
(AP, 5/15/08)(Econ, 5/24/08, p.67)

2008 May 21, Lebanon's feuding
factions reached a breakthrough deal, following talks in Qatar, to
end the country's 18-month political stalemate. The deal gives the
militant Hezbollah group and its allies veto over any government
decision.
(AP, 5/21/08)

2008 May 25, In Lebanon Michel
Suleiman was elected president. He asked PM Saniora to stay on as
caretaker until a new administration is formed. Cabinet posts will
be distributed according to the Doha agreement: 16 for the majority,
11 for the opposition and three for president, who heads the
Cabinet.
(AP, 5/26/08)

2008 May 28, In Lebanon PM Fuad
Saniora won a new term with the backing of a pro-American coalition,
angering the Hezbollah-led opposition.
(SFC, 5/29/08, p.A10)

2008 May 31, Lebanese troops
shot and killed a suicide bomber near Lebanon's largest Palestinian
refugee camp. The would-be suicide bomber was identified as Mahmoud
Yassin Ahmad, a 28-year-old Palestinian who lived in the Ein
el-Hilweh camp. Earlier in the day a Lebanese soldier was killed in
an explosion in the north of the country.
(AP, 6/1/08)

2008 Jun 17, In Lebanon
overnight clashes between pro- and anti-government supporters left
three people dead and four wounded in the east of the country.
(AP, 6/17/08)

2008 Jun 22, Fighting broke out
in northern Lebanon between pro- and anti-government factions
leaving at least four people dead.
(AP, 6/22/08)

2008 Jun 23, Lebanese security
officials say heavy overnight fighting between pro- and
anti-government supporters in the northern city of Tripoli has left
four more dead. Lebanese troops deployed in Tripoli after 2 days of
sectarian fighting left at least 9 people dead and 42 wounded.
(AP, 6/23/08)(WSJ, 6/24/08, p.A1)

2008 Jun 28, In Lebanon at
least one person was killed and 28 others wounded when an explosion
ripped through an apartment building in the northern city of
Tripoli. The explosion was caused by a bomb placed in the first
floor of a building in a district whose Sunni Muslim residents
support the government.
(AP, 6/28/08)

2008 Jun 29, Israel's Cabinet
overwhelmingly voted in favor of a deal with Hezbollah to swap a
notorious Lebanese prisoner for two captured soldiers who were
declared dead earlier in the day. Israel would release Samir Kantar,
imprisoned for a 1979 attack etched in the Israeli psyche as one of
the cruelest in the nation's history. Israel reopened its border
crossings with the Gaza Strip to allow a trickle of goods into the
territory.
(AP, 6/29/08)

2008 Jul 7, Israeli troops in
jeeps swooped down on the West Bank town of Nablus, shutting down a
girls' school, a medical center and two other facilities of a
Hamas-affiliated charity. Palestinian militants fired a mortar shell
at a border crossing with the Gaza Strip. Israel's military said it
had begun digging up the bodies of Lebanese fighters after the
government struck a deal with Hezbollah guerrillas to swap five
living prisoners and dozens of bodies for two Israeli soldiers
captured in 2006.
(AP, 7/7/08)

2008 Jul 9, In northern Lebanon
heavy fighting erupted between government supporters and Hezbollah's
allies, killing at least 4 people and shattering a truce that lasted
just two weeks.
(AP, 7/9/08)

2008 Jul 11, Lebanon's PM Fuad
Saniora announced a new national unity Cabinet in which Hezbollah
and its allies have veto power over government decisions.
(AP, 7/11/08)

2008 Jul 12, French President
Nicolas Sarkozy met his Egyptian counterpart Hosni Mubarak, kicking
off a round of diplomacy with Middle East leaders ahead of an
EU-Mediterranean summit. Sarkozy said that Syria and Lebanon will
open embassies in each other's countries for the first time. Syria's
leader cautioned there was still work to be done before that could
happen.
(AP, 7/12/08)(AP, 7/13/08)

2008 Jul 15, Israel's Cabinet
overwhelmingly approved an emotionally charged deal to trade a
Lebanese militant convicted of killing three people for two Israeli
soldiers captured by Hezbollah guerrillas and believed to be dead.
Israeli troops arrested three Hamas council members in a dawn raid
on the West Bank city of Nablus. Witnesses and residents said a
total of 12 Hamas members were arrested.
(AP, 7/15/08)

2008 Jul 16, Hezbollah handed
over two black coffins with the bodies of two Israeli soldiers and
Israel freed 5 Lebanese militants, including Samir Kantar, who
killed a 4-year-old girl and her father in 1979.
(AP, 7/16/08)(WSJ, 7/17/08, p.A1)

2008 Jul 19, In Lebanon the
Jund al-Sham group, which follows the extremist ideology of
al-Qaida, clashed with members of the mainstream Palestinian Fatah
movement. Two other Palestinian militants were killed in the clash.
(AP, 7/20/08)

2008 Jul 20, In Lebanon
Shehadeh Jawhar, military commander of the Jund al-Sham group, died
from wounds in the previous day’s clash with members of the
mainstream Palestinian Fatah movement.
(AP, 7/20/08)

2008 Jul 25, In Lebanon clashes
between Sunni Muslim gunmen and the Alawite broke out at dawn when a
hand grenade was thrown toward a Sunni area. Fighting left one
person dead.
(AP, 7/25/08)

2008 Jul 26, In Lebanon three
more people were killed in the second day of sectarian clashes
between Sunnis and Alawites in northern Lebanon, bringing the total
to 9 with 42 wounded.
(AP, 7/26/08)

2008 Jul 28, Lebanese singer
Suzanne Tamim (30) was found stabbed and her throat slashed in
Dubai. On August 8 Egypt banned news coverage of the brutal slaying
following media reports in other papers that said a wealthy Egyptian
businessman ordered 3 men to carry out the killing. On Sep 2 Hisham
Talaat Moustafa, an Egyptian lawmaker and business tycoon, was
arrested in the death Tamim. He was accused of paying a former
police officer $2 million to kill her. On May 21, 2009, Moustafa was
sentenced to death for ordering Tamim’s death. Former officer,
Mohsen el-Sukkary, was also convicted and sentenced to death. In
2010 Moustafa was spared the death penalty after a retrial changed
his original death sentence to 15 years in prison.
(www.allaboutjazz.com/php/news.php?id=21342)(AP,
9/2/08)(AP, 5/21/09)(AP, 9/28/10)

2008 Jul 30, In Lebanon gunmen
attacked a Lebanese military post in the country's east, killing one
soldier and wounding another.
(AP, 7/30/08)

2008 Aug 12, The Lebanese
parliament overwhelmingly approved the country's national unity
Cabinet after a five-day debate on a controversial policy that
upholds Hezbollah's right to keep its weapons.
(AP, 8/12/08)

2008 Aug 13, In northern
Lebanese city a bomb ripped through a bus during morning rush hour
in Tripoli, killing 18 soldiers and civilians, raising fears that an
al-Qaida-inspired militant group is stepping up revenge attacks
against the military.
(AP, 8/13/08)

2008 Aug 14, Syria agreed to a
longtime Lebanese demand to negotiate the demarcation of their
border a day after the countries said they would establish full
diplomatic relations for the first time.
(AP, 8/14/08)

2008 Aug 27, The UN Security
Council voted unanimously to keep a peacekeeping force in Lebanon
for another year, calling for stepped-up efforts to achieve a
permanent cease-fire and long-term resolution of the 2006
Israel-Hezbollah war.
(AP, 8/27/08)

2008 Aug 28, In Lebanon
attackers opened fire on a military helicopter, killing a Lebanese
army officer and forcing the craft to make an emergency landing. The
next day Hezbollah handed over a man suspected of firing on the
helicopter.
(AP, 8/28/08)(AP, 8/29/08)

2008 Sep 1, Most of the Muslim
Mideast began the first day of Ramadan, but Iraqi Shiites, some
Lebanese Shiites and Iran will start observing the holy month of
fasting on Sep 2.
(AP, 9/1/08)

2008 Sep 8, In Lebanon rival
groups signed an agreement to end sectarian violence that has killed
and wounded scores in the past three months in the northern city of
Tripoli.
(AP, 9/9/08)

2008 Sep 10, In Lebanon Druse
Sheik Saleh Aridi died in his village of Baissour in the hills east
of Beirut, after a bomb planted under his car was detonated by
remote control as he drove away from his home. The country's first
political assassination in months threatened efforts to reconcile
its divided factions.
(AP, 9/11/08)

2008 Sep 17, In northern
Lebanon a gunfight between two rival Christian groups has left two
people dead and three wounded.
(AP, 9/17/08)

2008 Sep 29, In northern
Lebanon a car bomb exploded near a military bus carrying troops
going to work, killing at least five people and injuring 25 others.
Two more people died from their wounds the next day, raising the
total death toll to seven.
(AP, 9/29/08)(AP, 9/30/08)

2008 Oct 6, The United States
and Lebanon set up a joint military commission to bolster military
cooperation, a move that follows the first visit by the newly
elected Lebanese president to Washington.
(AP, 10/6/08)

2008 Oct 9, Two American
journalists, Holli Chmela (27) and Taylor Luck (23), who went
missing during a vacation in Lebanon eight days ago were released in
Syria and returned to Jordan. The next day they said they had been
"kidnapped" by their taxi driver and taken into Syria, where they
were held in custody for a week before being released.
(AP, 10/9/08)(AP, 10/10/08)

2008 Oct 14, Syria established
diplomatic relations with Lebanon, ending six decades of
non-recognition of its neighbor's sovereignty in an apparent bid to
curry favor with the West as it pursues indirect peace talks with
Israel.
(AP, 10/14/08)

2008 Oct 15, The foreign
ministers of Syria and Lebanon signed an agreement formalizing
diplomatic ties between the two countries for the first time in
their turbulent history.
(AP, 10/15/08)

2008 Nov 21, A shootout between
Lebanese soldiers and a group of gunmen in the northern port city of
Tripoli left one of the gunmen dead and two wounded.
(AP, 11/21/08)
2008 Nov 21, Germany banned
Hezbollah's Lebanon-based satellite television station on grounds
that it violates the country's constitution.
(AP, 11/23/08)

2009 Jan 8, The UN halted aid
deliveries to the besieged Gaza Strip, citing Israeli attacks on its
staff and installations hours after it said tank fire killed one of
its drivers as he went to pick up a shipment. For a 2nd straight
day, Israel suspended its Gaza military operation for three hours to
allow in humanitarian supplies. Israel killed at least 11 people,
including three who were fleeing their homes, raising the death toll
from its 13-day offensive to 699 Palestinians. 11 Israelis have died
since the offensive began Dec. 27. Militants in Lebanon fired at
least three rockets into Israel.
(AP, 1/8/09)

2009 Jan 11, An estimated 2,500
Lebanese and Palestinians protested peacefully in downtown Beirut
against Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip, as hundreds of
demonstrators in neighboring Syria shouted insults at the both the
Jewish state and Arab leaders.
(AP, 1/11/09)

2009 Jan 14, Guerrillas in
Lebanon rocketed northern Israel for the second time in a week,
drawing Israeli artillery fire and threatening to drag the Jewish
state into a second front as diplomatic efforts to broker a truce in
Gaza intensified. Gaza health ministry official Dr. Moaiya Hassanain
said the offensive has killed 1,000 Palestinians, about half of them
civilians, including 300 children. The Israeli navy intercepted an
Iranian ship loaded with medicine, food and clothing destined for
Gaza and forced the vessel to Egypt instead. Palestinian surveyors
estimated that Israel's fierce assault on Gaza's Hamas rulers has
destroyed at least $1.4 billion worth of buildings, roads, pipes,
power lines and other infrastructure.
(AP, 1/14/09)

2009 Feb 4, Poland’s defense
minister stated plans to end military missions in Lebanon, the Golan
Heights and Chad in an effort to cut spending due to the global
economic crisis.
(AP, 2/4/09)

2009 Feb 5, The Israeli navy
intercepted a ship delivering 60 tons of supplies to the Gaza Strip
from Lebanon in the latest bid to defy Israel's blockade of the
militant-held territory.
(AP, 2/5/09)

2009 Feb 21, Two rockets were
fired from south Lebanon at Israel, with one slamming into a mostly
Christian Arab village and causing minor injuries to at least one
Israeli.
(AP, 2/21/09)

2009 Feb 25, In Lebanon 3 men
jailed for more than three years in the assassination of former PM
Rafik Hariri were set free on bail, days before an international
tribunal was to begin trying the case. Brothers Mahmoud and Ahmed
Abdel-Al, a member of a pro-Syrian Sunni Muslim fundamentalist
group, were detained in 2005. Syrian Ibrahim Jarjoura, was arrested
in 2006 on suspicion he gave false evidence and misled the
investigation.
(AP, 2/25/09)

2009 Mar 16, Lebanon opened its
first-ever embassy in Syria in another sign of improving ties
between the long-feuding neighbors.
(AP, 3/16/09)

2009 Mar 23, In southern
Lebanon an explosion killed Kamal Madhat (55), a senior Fatah
official, and three of his bodyguards as they were leaving a
Palestinian refugee camp.
(AP, 3/24/09)

2009 Apr 13, In Lebanon gunmen
ambushed government troops in the east of the country, spraying
their military vehicle with gunfire and rocket-propelled grenades.
Four soldiers were killed and an officer was wounded in the attack.
(AP, 4/13/09)

2009 Apr 17, Mohammed Zuhair
Siddiq, purported Syrian intelligence officer and one of the
suspects in the 2005 assassination of a former Lebanese prime
minister, was arrested in Dubai. He was arrested in France in
October 2005 as a suspect in the murder, but disappeared from house
arrest in France in March, 2008.
(AP, 4/20/09)

2009 Apr 25, Lebanese
authorities arrested three men for allegedly being part of a spying
ring for Israel, in the latest episode in the long-running espionage
war between the two countries. The arrests were based on information
extracted from a retired Lebanese general arrested earlier this
week, also for allegedly spying for Israel.
(AP, 4/25/09)
2009 Apr 25, Lebanon’s national
debt was reported to have dropped to 162% of GDP, triple the world
average.
(Econ, 4/25/09, p.52)

2009 Apr 29, Lebanon released
four generals held for nearly four years in the 2005 truck-bomb
assassination of former PM Rafik Hariri after a UN-backed tribunal
in the Netherlands ordered them freed, setting off celebrations with
fireworks and dancing.
(AP, 4/29/09)

2009 May 8, In southern Lebanon
authorities arrested five people for allegedly spying for Israel as
part of the two countries' long-running espionage battle.
(AP, 5/8/09)

2009 May 16, Ziad al-Homsi, a
mayor of a Lebanese village, was arrested by Lebanese special forces
and later jailed for 15 years for spying for Mossad. He served three
years.
(AP, 5/7/13)

2009 May 18, Two Lebanese men
suspected of spying for Israel fled across the heavily fortified
border to the Jewish state, the second such escape since Lebanon
stepped up a campaign of arrests against those thought to be working
for its archenemy.
(AP, 5/18/09)

2009 May 30, Lebanon charged
four people with collaborating with Israel, raising to 23 the number
of suspected spies who have been charged in the last few months.
(AP, 5/31/09)

2009 Jun 7, Lebanese streamed
to their hometowns to vote in a crucial election. Muslims made up at
least 60 percent of the estimated 4 million population. The rest are
Christians. There are 18 religious sects. Christians, Sunni Muslims
and Shiite Muslims make up roughly a third of the population each.
About 400,000 Palestinian refugees also live in Lebanon. Lebanon's
Western-backed coalition defeated Hezbollah and its allies dealing a
stunning setback to the Iranian-backed militants. The tally showed
the winning coalition with 68 seats versus 57 for the Hezbollah-led
alliance. Three seats went to independents. Turnout nationwide was
about 52.3% up from 45.8% in 2005.
(AP, 6/7/09)(AP, 6/8/09)

2009 Jun 9, In Argentina judge
Rodolfo Canicoba Corral asked Interpol to detain Samuel Salman (43),
who is believed to be living in Lebanon, for involvement in the July
18, 1994, bombing of a Jewish cultural center in Buenos Aires that
killed 85 people.
(AP, 6/9/09)

2009 Jun 27, Lebanon's
president appointed parliamentary majority leader Saad Hariri to
become prime minister after his pro-Western coalition defeated a
Hezbollah-led alliance in this month's election.
(AP, 6/27/09)

2009 Jun 28, In Lebanon a Sunni
woman (30) was killed and three men were wounded in a gunbattle
between Sunni supporters of Lebanon's prime minister-designate and
parliamentary majority leader Saad Hariri, and rival followers of
the Hezbollah-allied Shiite Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri.
(AP, 6/29/09)

2009 Jul 13, Former Lebanese PM
Amin al-Hafez (83) died. He served a turbulent two-month term in
1973 before he was forced to resign.
(AP, 7/13/09)

2009 Jul 15, Mazen Abdul-Jawad
(32), a Saudi man, appeared on the Lebanese-based LBC satellite TV
station’s "Bold Red Line" program and shocked Saudis by publicly
confessing to sexual exploits. More than 200 people soon filed legal
complaints against Abdul-Jawad, dubbed a "sex braggart" by the
media, and many Saudis said he should be severely punished. On July
31 Abdul-Jawad was detained for questioning. The Jiddah offices of
the LBC station were closed soon thereafter.
(AP, 8/6/09)(AP, 8/9/09)

2009 Aug 18, In Lebanon 8
members of an al-Qaida-inspired group sawed bars off their cell
windows in a high-security prison, scaled down the building using
blankets tied together, then stood on each other's shoulders to help
one jump over a wall and escape. Prison guards managed to stop the
other seven from fleeing. Officials described the escaped prisoner,
Taha al-Hajj Suleiman, as a Syrian militant and a "dangerous" member
of the Fatah Islam group. Suleiman was caught the next day in the
woods just north of the Roumieh prison.
(AP, 8/18/09)(AP, 8/19/09)

2009 Sep 10, Lebanese Prime
Minister-designate Saad Hariri said he is abandoning efforts to form
a new government after the Hezbollah-led parliament minority
rejected his list for a national unity Cabinet. This forced
President Michel Suleiman to start consultations with lawmakers from
scratch over naming a new premier.
(AP, 9/10/09)

2009 Sep 11, A senior Lebanese
military official said two rockets were fired toward Israel from the
town of Qlaileh inside Lebanon. Israel responded with a barrage of
14 rockets. No injuries or damage were reported.
(AP, 9/11/09)(SFC, 9/12/09, p.A2)

2009 Sep 12, In Lebanon Salah
Ezzedine (47), a Shiite businessman with connections to Hezbollah,
and his partner Youssef Faour were arrested on suspicion of cheating
investors of hundreds of millions of dollars. They charged with
fraudulent embezzlement.
(www.nytimes.com/2009/09/16/world/middleeast/16lebanon.html?_r=3&ref=world)

2009 Oct 1, A Lebanese
businessman, Hassan Alayan, alleged that he and several hundred
other Lebanese were expelled from the United Arab Emirates country
because they refused to spy on the Shiite militant group Hezbollah
and other fellow citizens.
(AP, 10/1/09)

2009 Oct 27, Lebanon-based
militants launched a rocket into northern Israel hitting near the
Israeli town of Kiryat Shemona. The attack drew a rapid response
from Israeli artillery, which shelled the launch area. No casualties
were reported on either side.
(AP, 10/28/09)

2009 Oct 28, Lebanese troops
found and dismantled four rockets near the border with Israel, a day
after a brief flare-up across the tense boundary.
(AP, 10/28/09)

2009 Nov 4, Israeli commandos
seized a ship that defense officials said was carrying more than 60
tons of missiles, rockets and anti-tank weapons bound for Lebanon's
Iranian-backed Hezbollah guerrillas. The vessel Francop was operated
by United Feeder Services, a Cyprus-based shipping company that said
it picked up the cargo in Damietta, Egypt.
(AP, 11/4/09)

2009 Nov 9, Lebanon’s PM Saad
Hariri formed Cabinet that included the militant group Hezbollah and
its allies, ending a months long deadlock.
(SFC, 11/10/09, p.A2)
2009 Nov 9, In Saudi Arabia Ali
Sibat (49), a Lebanese psychic who made predictions on a satellite
TV channel from his home in Beirut, was sentenced to death for
practicing witchcraft. He was arrested by religious police in Medina
during a pilgrimage there in May, 2008. In 2010 Saudi authorities
said Sibat would not be beheaded. A 3-judge panel said that there
was not enough evidence that Sibat's actions harmed others. They
ordered the case to be retried in a Medina court and recommended
that the sentence be commuted and that Sibat be deported.
(AP, 11/25/09)(AP, 4/21/10)(AP, 11/13/10)

2009 Nov 10, Israel's army
chief said Hezbollah guerrillas now possess tens of thousands of
rockets, some capable of reaching the country's major cities.
(AP, 11/10/09)

2009 Nov 19, From Lebanon the
militant Hezbollah group said that Sheik Hassan Nasrallah has been
re-elected as the group's leader for a sixth term.
(AP, 11/19/09)

2009 Dec 2, Lebanon's new
government endorsed Hezbollah's right to keep its weapons.
(AP, 12/2/09)

2009 Dec 17, Off the coast of
Lebanon a Panamanian-flagged cargo ship carrying thousands of sheep
and other livestock went down in heavy rain. At least 9 crew members
were killed and dozens were missing.
(AP, 12/18/09)

2009 Dec 19, Lebanon's PM Saad
Hariri, who has blamed neighboring Syria for the assassination of
his father, visited Damascus for the first time since the 2005
killing, a trip that a close associate said was extremely difficult
for him to make.
(AP, 12/19/09)

2009 Dec 23, It was reported
that Lebanon's drug-producing heartland is back in business with a
resurgence of marijuana and poppy fields, challenging the country's
underpowered security forces and adding another dimension to
Israel's war with Hezbollah militants.
(AP, 12/23/09)

2009 Dec 26, In Lebanon 2
members of the Palestinian militant group Hamas were killed in an
explosion in a Beirut suburb that one report described as a bombing.
The attack was said to have involved three bombs tied to each other.
(AP, 12/27/09)

2009 Dec 27, In Lebanon
Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah called on Egypt to stop
building a steel wall along the Gaza border that could obstruct
tunnels which provide a lifeline for the blockaded enclave.
(Reuters, 12/27/09)

2010 Jan 8, Israeli cooks
doubled the previous record for the world's biggest serving of
hummus, set in October by cooks in Lebanon. An adjudicator sent from
London by Guinness World Records, Jack Brockbank, confirmed that
Israeli chefs now held the record for hummus. He put the exact
amount of hummus in a giant satellite dish at 9,017 pounds (4,090
kg).
(AP, 1/8/10)

2010 Jan 13, In Lebanon a bomb
apparently meant for a Hezbollah figure went off in the village of
Kfar Fila, a southern stronghold of the militant group, wounding his
daughter and two other students waiting for their school bus.
(AP, 1/13/10)

2010 Jan 25, An Ethiopian
Airlines plane carrying 90 people caught fire and crashed into the
sea minutes after taking off from Beirut. At least 34 bodies were
recovered, but no survivors were found by nightfall. In 2012 a
Lebanese report put the blame on pilot error and inexperience.
Ethiopian Airlines immediately rejected the Lebanese findings saying
the crash was likely caused by sabotage or a lightning strike.
(AP, 1/25/10)(AFP, 1/17/12)

2010 Apr 8, In Lebanon heavy
clashes erupted in a Palestinian military camp in a remote eastern
part of the country as a result of infighting among Palestinian
factions. The camp is run by the Syrian-backed Popular Front for the
Liberation of Palestine-General Command.
(AP, 4/8/10)

2010 Apr 13, Israel's Supreme
Court permitted an Israeli-Arab author to travel to Lebanon to
receive a literary award. Ala Hlehel (35) was invited to the
Beirut39 Festival this week, but laws in enemy nations prevented him
from going. Hlehel is acclaimed for a collection of short stories
called "The Circus" and a play.
(AP, 4/13/10)

2010 Apr 16, Lebanese residents
dismantled a barbed wire fence set up by Israeli troops in a
disputed border area, leading to a call for restraint by UN
peacekeepers in the tense region. Army clashes with a powerful clan
in the eastern Lebanese city of Baalbek wounded 10 people, including
five soldiers.
(AFP, 4/16/10)

2010 Apr 30, Hezbollah's leader
Sheik Hassan Nasrallah said in published remarks that Hezbollah can
strike infrastructure deep inside Israel if a new war breaks out,
but refused to confirm whether or not the Lebanon-based militants
have long-range Scud missiles.
(AP, 4/30/10)

2010 May 9, The second round of
Lebanon's municipal elections kicked off in Beirut and the Bekaa
region, respectively dominated by PM Saad Hariri and the Shiite
party Hezbollah.
(AFP, 5/9/10)

2010 May 24, Lebanon's PM Saad
Hariri made his first official visit to Washington as premier and
planned to discuss Mideast security issues and peace efforts with
Pres. Barack Obama.
(AP, 5/23/10)

2010 Jun 4, A Lebanese
policeman died after he was critically wounded by a bomblet from a
cluster bomb, one of millions dropped by Israel during a devastating
2006 war with Hezbollah.
(AP, 6/4/10)

2010 Jun 15, Interpol said it
has arrested Moussa Hamdan (38), a Lebanese national suspected of
funneling money to the Shiite militant group Hezbollah, in Paraguay
in the tri-border area with Argentina and Brazil.
(AFP, 6/16/10)

2010 Jun 21, Lebanese
authorities granted permission for a blockade-busting ship with
activists and aid on board to sail first to the Mediterranean island
of Cyprus.
(AP, 6/21/10)

2010 Jun 30, The Israeli army
said an Israeli soldier and several civilians have been arrested for
allegedly passing information to the Lebanese militia Hezbollah and
smuggling drugs across the border.
(AFP, 6/30/10)

2010 Jul 7, Israel said that
its moves to ease its blockade on Gaza do not include relaxing
regulations on Palestinians looking to travel out of the enclave.
Israel's military released maps and aerial photographs showing what
it described as a network of Hezbollah weapons depots and command
centers inside villages in south Lebanon, near the Israeli border.
(AFP, 7/7/10)(AP, 7/7/10)

2010 Jul 15, Lebanon arrested a
third person in a widening probe into a suspected network of Israeli
spies employed in the country's telecom sector.
(AFP, 7/16/10)

2010 Jul 30, The leaders of
Syria and Saudi Arabia, once bitter rivals, made an unprecedented
show of cooperation, traveling together to Lebanon in hopes of
preventing any violence if members of a militant group are indicted
in the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese PM Rafik Hariri.
(AP, 7/30/10)

2010 Jul 31, Qatar's emir made
a high-profile visit to south Lebanon, a Hezbollah stronghold
destroyed in a 2006 war with Israel and whose rebuilding the emirate
is helping finance.
(AFP, 7/31/10)

2010 Aug 2, US Rep. Howard
Berman, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee,
suspended assistance to the Lebanese Armed Forces, saying he cannot
be sure the country's armed forces are not working with Hezbollah.
(AP, 8/10/10)

2010 Aug 3, Lebanese and
Israeli troops exchanged fire on the border in the most serious
clashes since a fierce war four years ago. 3 Lebanese nationals, two
soldiers and a journalist, and an Israeli soldier were killed in the
shootout which saw both sides threatening retaliation if the
shooting recurred. Israeli troops returned the next day to the site
of the shootout and cut down a number of trees growing along the
border, completing a task which had set off the confrontation.
(AP, 8/3/10)(AFP, 8/4/10)

2010 Aug 10, Lebanon criticized
a US Congressman's decision to suspend $100 million of military aid
over concerns that Iranian-backed Hezbollah may have influence over
the Arab country's army and American-supplied weapons could be used
to threaten neighboring Israel.
(AP, 8/10/10)

2010 Aug 14, Lebanese
intelligence agents killed two suspected members of an
al-Qaida-inspired group in the Bekaa Valley. Local TV station
Al-Jadeed reported that one of them was Abdul-Rahman Awad, a leader
of the Fatah Islam group, and his aide, Ghazi Faysal Abdullah. They
were heading to Iraq to join insurgents.
(AP, 8/14/10)(AP, 8/18/10)

2010 Aug 15, Israel's military
said Hezbollah is moving fighters and weapons into the villages of
south Lebanon, building up a secret network of arms warehouses,
bunkers and command posts in preparation for war.
(AP, 8/15/10)

2010 Aug 17, Lebanon's
Parliament passed a law that for the first time grants the country's
Palestinian refugees the right to work in any profession.
(AP, 8/17/10)

2010 Aug 24, In Lebanon 3
Hezbollah members and a follower of the conservative Sunni al-Ahbash
group were killed in the residential Bourj Abu Haider district, just
outside Beirut's downtown, in running battles with fighters wielding
assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades. The most serious
fighting in Beirut since 2008 appears to have been touched off by a
traffic dispute that escalated into deadly, hours-long street
battles.
(AP, 8/25/10)

2010 Sep 3, In southern Lebanon
explosions ripped through a building that might have been used to
store weapons by the militant group Hezbollah.
(AP, 9/3/10)

2010 Oct 4, It was reported
that Syria has ordered the arrest of 33 people over false testimony
given in the UN-backed probe into the assassination of Lebanese
ex-premier Rafiq Hariri. Observers said the warrants carried no
legal weight in Lebanon as the crime in question took place on
Lebanese soil and the complainant as well as most of the defendants
are Lebanese.
(AFP, 10/4/10)

2010 Oct 13, Iranian President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, welcomed by thousands of Shiite supporters
throwing rose petals, sought to pull Lebanon firmly into his
country's fold in a visit that underscored the growing power of
Tehran and its Lebanese ally, Hezbollah.
(AP, 10/13/10)

2010 Oct 28, Sheik Hassan
Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, called on all Lebanese to
boycott the UN tribunal investigating the 2005 assassination of a
former prime minister, saying all information gathered by the team
was being sent to Israel. He spoke a day after a crowd of women
attacked two UN investigators and a Lebanese interpreter as they
gathered evidence at a private gynecology clinic in Beirut. He
confirmed that the wives and relatives of Hezbollah commanders and
officials were among the clinic's patients. A 13-year-old boy was
killed and four other people wounded in a grenade blast outside a
scrap metal yard in northern Lebanon's Nahr al-Bared camp.
(AP, 10/29/10)(AFP, 12/25/10)

2010 Nov 12, A Lebanese
military court convicted Omar Bakri Mohammed, a radical Muslim
cleric, of terrorism charges and sentenced him in absentia to life
in prison. Bakri was among 54 people sentenced as part of ongoing
trials of militants who fought deadly clashes with the Lebanese army
in 2007. Bakri lived in Britain for 20 years where he headed the
now-disbanded radical Islamist group al-Muhajiroun. He left Britain
for Lebanon in 2005 and the British government barred him from
returning.
(AP, 11/12/10)

2010 Nov 14, In Lebanon radical
Muslim cleric Omar Bakri Mohammed was arrested at his home in
Tripoli two days after a military court sentenced him in absentia to
life in prison in a terrorism trial.
(AP, 11/14/10)

2010 Nov 16, Lebanese officials
said Russia will provide the Lebanese army with free helicopters,
tanks and munitions in a deal that will boost the country's poorly
equipped military. This news came just days after two key members of
the U.S. Congress released their holds on $100 million in US
military aid to the Lebanese army.
(AP, 11/16/10)

2010 Nov 16, Lebanese officials
said Russia will provide the Lebanese army with free helicopters,
tanks and munitions in a deal that will boost the country's poorly
equipped military. This news came just days after two key members of
the U.S. Congress released their holds on $100 million in US
military aid to the Lebanese army.
(AP, 11/16/10)

2010 Nov 27, Lebanese PM Saad
Hariri expressed concerns for stability in the Middle East as he
began a visit to Tehran to rally Iran's support for his efforts to
keep Lebanon stable amid tensions over a U.N. probe into the
assassination of his father, Rafik Hariri.
(AP, 11/27/10)

2010 Nov 28, More than 250,000
classified US State Department documents were released by online
whistleblower WikiLeaks. Among the leaked memos was information that
Iranian Red Crescent ambulances were used to smuggle weapons to
Lebanon's militant Hezbollah group during its 2006 war with Israel.
Memos said the "IRC shipments of medical supplies served also to
facilitate weapons shipments." Documents also detailed concerns by
US officials in Baghdad about Iran’s influence on Iraq. Memos also
said King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia had repeatedly urged the United
States to attack Iran to destroy its nuclear program to stop Tehran
from developing a nuclear weapon.
(AP, 11/28/10)

2010 Dec 3, In Lebanon the
militant Hezbollah group said it discovered what it said was an
Israeli device on Hezbollah's private telecommunications network in
the southern village of Majdel Silim. The device was apparently
detonated remotely by the Israelis.
(AP, 12/4/10)

2010 Dec 7, The New York Times
reported that US officials believe the militant group Hezbollah,
based in Lebanon, has acquired an arsenal of some 50,000 rockets and
missiles, raising fears of an enlarged conflict with Israel. Iran
and Syria were named as the sources.
(AFP, 12/7/10)

2010 Dec 12, Heavy rain and
fierce winds pummeled countries across the Middle East, killing a
woman in Lebanon, sinking a ship off Israel's coast and prompting
Egypt to close its largest Mediterranean port. A factory collapsed
in Alexandria. 13 bodies were later pulled from the rubble and at
least 15 more workers were believed trapped.
(AP, 12/12/10)(AFP, 12/12/10)(SFC, 12/14/10,
p.A2)

2010 Dec 15, Lebanon's army
said its military experts have discovered and dismantled two spy
cameras planted in the country's mountains by Israel.
(AP, 12/15/10)
2010 Dec 15, Ben Zygier (34)
reportedly committed suicide in a high-security Israeli jail after
being held for months in great secrecy. His body was soon flown from
Israel to Melbourne for burial. The Australian man had reportedly
been recruited by the Israeli spy agency Mossad. Zygier's crime was
to inadvertently reveal the identity of Ziad al-Homsi to a Lebanese
man he was trying to turn into a double agent, but who worked for
Lebanese intelligence. Al-Homsi had been approached by Mossad in
2007 and flown to China on the pretext of attending a mayoral
convention.
(Reuters, 2/12/13)(AP, 2/19/13)(Reuters, 5/7/13)

2011 Jan 3, In Lebanon Ahmed
Yamani (86), one of the founders of the radical Popular Front for
the Liberation of Palestine, died in Beirut after a stroke. The PFLP
was launched by the late Palestinian leader George Habash in
December 1967, six months after the Arabs lost the West Bank, Gaza
Strip and Syria's Golan Heights to Israel.
(AP, 1/4/11)

2011 Jan 12, A Lebanese
official said Hezbollah ministers and their allies have resigned
from the 30-member Cabinet, bringing the government to the brink of
collapse. 11 ministers of the March 8 opposition stepped down from
the Cabinet over tensions stemming from a UN-backed tribunal
investigating the assassination of a Former Prime Minister Rafik
Hariri.
(AP, 1/12/11)(Econ, 1/15/11, p.50)

2011 Jan 13, The collapse of
Lebanon's government plunged the country into deep political
uncertainty after a year of relative stability, as the president
began the process of putting a new administration together.
(AP, 1/13/11)

2011 Jan 17, In Lebanon a
long-awaited indictment was released in the death of former Prime
Minister Rafik Hariri. The indictment was sealed and its contents
will likely not become public for weeks. But the court is widely
expected to accuse members of Hezbollah of being involved in the
killing, something the Shiite militant group has insisted it will
not accept.
(AP, 1/18/11)

2011 Jan 25, Lebanese President
Michel Sleiman issued a decree appointing former premier Najib
Mikati, Harvard-educated billionaire businessman and the candidate
backed by Iranian-allied Hezbollah, to form Lebanon's next
government, angering Sunnis who protested the rising power of the
Shiite militant group by burning tires and torching a van belonging
to Al-Jazeera.
(AFP, 1/25/11)

2011 Jan 26, Lebanon's
Western-backed coalition called on supporters to hold daily sit-ins
in downtown Beirut to protest the growing power of the Iran-backed
militant group Hezbollah.
(AP, 1/26/11)

2011 Feb 17, A Lebanese
military court convicted Amin al-Baba of spying for Israel and
sentenced him to death. He had been spying for Israel from 1997
until his 2009 arrest.
(AP, 2/18/11)

2011 Feb 27, In Lebanon about
500 people waving flags and chanting for national unity gathered in
Beirut in a protest inspired by the wave of demonstrations across
the Middle East. The crowd held signs criticizing the sectarian
makeup of Lebanon's government.
(AP, 2/27/11)

2011 Mar 13, In Lebanon tens of
thousands filled a central Beirut square to mark the 2005 protests
that ended Syria's 30-year domination of the country and to demand
that the militant group Hezbollah, seen as a proxy of Syria, give up
its weapons.
(AP, 3/13/11)

2011 Mar 15, Lebanon's Maronite
bishops elected Archbishop Bechara el-Rai as the new patriarch for
the Middle East's largest Catholic church.
(AP, 3/15/11)

2011 Mar 31, The Israeli
military released a map detailing what it says are nearly 1,000
underground bunkers, weapons storage facilities and monitoring sites
built by the militant Hezbollah guerrillas in southern Lebanon.
(AP, 3/31/11)

2011 Apr 5, In Lebanon several
hundred inmates demanding improved conditions at the country’s
largest prison took three guards hostage and set fire inside one of
the buildings. Police stormed the country's largest prison to halt a
dayslong riot by the inmates. Two prisoners died during the
operation.
(AP, 4/5/11)(AP, 4/6/11)

2011 Apr 11, In Lebanon a
police intelligence officer and a main suspect in the kidnapping of
Estonian cyclists were killed in a shootout in the border village of
Majdal Anjar.
(AP, 4/20/11)

2011 May 15, A Lebanese soldier
was wounded from gunfire coming from the Syrian side of the border.
(AP, 5/15/11)
2011 May 15, Israeli troops
clashed with Arab protesters along three hostile borders, leaving at
least 12 people dead and dozens wounded in an unprecedented wave of
violence marking the anniversary of the mass displacement of
Palestinians surrounding Israel's establishment in 1948. Israeli
gunfire killed two protesters and wounded dozens as civilians
crossed from Syria onto the annexed Golan Heights, raising tensions
between Damascus and the Jewish state. 10 of the dead were
Palestinian refugees living in Lebanon.
(AP, 5/15/11)(AFP, 5/15/11)(AP, 5/16/11)

2011 May 27, In southern
Lebanon a roadside bomb ripped through a UN convoy carrying Italian
peacekeepers, wounding six of them in the first such attack since
2008.
(AP, 5/27/11)

2011 Jun 24, In Lebanon Sheik
Hassan Nasrallah said CIA members at the embassy had recruited at
least two Hezbollah members and the group was investigating whether
the US intelligence agency or another foreign agency recruited a
third.
(AP, 6/24/11)

2011 Jun 30, A UN-backed court
investigating the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime
Minister Rafik Hariri delivered four arrest warrants. Lebanese
authorities were given 30 days to serve the indictments on suspects
or execute arrest warrants. If they fail, the court can then order
the indictment published and advertised in local media. One of the
people named is Mustafa Badreddine, believed to have been
Hezbollah's deputy military commander. He is the brother-in-law of
the late Hezbollah military commander Imad Mughniyeh and is
suspected of involvement in the 1983 bombings of the U.S. and French
embassies in Kuwait that killed five people. The other suspects are:
Salim Ayyash, also known as Abu Salim; Assad Sabra and Hassan Anise,
who changed his name to Hassan Issa.
(AP, 6/30/11)(AP, 7/1/11)

2011 Jun, UN Statistics
Division said 70 territories would be holding censuses in 2011. Only
Iraq, Lebanon, Myanmar, Somalia, Uzbekistan and Western Sahara would
fail to hold a count in this ten-year round.
(Econ, 6/4/11, p.71)

2011 Jul 7, Lebanese lawmakers
voted to approve the newly formed Hezbollah-dominated Cabinet after
a contentious debate over the government's position in confronting
the Islamic militant group.
(AP, 7/7/11)

2011 Jul 9, Interpol, at the
request of the Netherlands-based Special Tribunal for Lebanon,
issued its highest-level international alerts against four Hezbollah
men indicted in the 2005 slaying of Lebanon's former prime minister.
(AP, 7/9/11)

2011 Jul 14, In Lebanon 7
Estonian tourists abducted nearly four months ago while cycling
through Lebanon's eastern Bekaa Valley were released in good health.
Harakat al-Nahda wal-Islah, or the Movement for Renewal and Reform,
had claimed responsibility for the March 23 abduction and demanded
an unspecified ransom. Two men suspected of involvement in the
kidnapping were killed in a September 20 shootout with police.
(AP, 7/14/11)(AP, 11/2/11)

2011 Jul 26, In south Lebanon a
roadside bomb blew up next to a United Nations convoy carrying
French peacekeepers, wounding at least five of them in the second
attack on the UN force in two months.
(AP, 7/27/11)

2011 Jul 29, The pre-trial
judge for the UN tribunal investigating the death of former Lebanese
prime minister Rafiq Hariri, confirmed the names of four Hezbollah
suspects indicted in the case. The four named in the indictment are:
Salim Ayyash; Mustafa Badreddine; Hussein Anaissi and Assad Sabra.
The names of the four, whose whereabouts are unknown, were revealed
by the Lebanese government late last month after being leaked by the
local media.
(AFP, 7/29/11)

2011 Aug 11, In Lebanon a bomb
went off in a north Beirut suburb, killing two people and damaging
several cars, including one belonging to a judge. One of the two men
reportedly handling the bomb died almost immediately, while another
was seriously wounded and died later in hospital.
(AP, 8/11/11)

2011 Aug 13, In Lebanon 4
Lebanese and one Sudanese citizen broke out of the heavily-guarded
Roumieh prison east of Beirut. The Lebanese were members of the
al-Qaida-inspired Fatah Islam group.
(AP, 8/13/11)

2011 Aug 17, Lebanon’s
parliament passed legislation banning smoking in closed public
places, like bars and restaurants. It will go into effect over the
next year.
(SFC, 8/18/11, p.A2)

2011 Aug 30, In Lebanon a man
in a land dispute shot dead five members of the same family who had
gathered in a cemetery in the Bekaa valley area to mark the end of
Ramadan.
(AFP, 8/30/11)

2011 Oct 18, Syrian army
cross-border raids into east Lebanon left 3 dead, including 2 in Qaa
and one in Aarsal. The Lebanese government, dominated by the
powerful militant group Hezbollah, a strong ally of the Syrian
regime, has for the most part stayed mum on the issue.
(AFP, 10/26/11)

2011 Oct 19, The UN called on
Damascus to end its incursions into Lebanon, which have left three
Syrians dead in recent weeks, warning the raids could ignite
tensions in the region.
(AFP, 10/20/11)

2011 Nov 2, A Syrian security
official said Syria has arrested Wael Abbas, a top suspect in the
kidnapping of 7 Estonians, freed four months after their abduction
in Lebanon, and handed him over to Beirut.
(AFP, 11/2/11)

2011 Nov 4, Lebanon’s PM Najib
Mikati confirmed in a broadcast interview that opposition figures
from neighboring Syria had been kidnapped in Lebanon, but said they
were isolated incidents.
(AFP, 11/4/11)

2011 Nov 8, The Syrian
opposition urged authorities in neighboring Lebanon to act over
reports that more than a dozen of their members in that country have
been kidnapped.
(AFP, 11/9/11)

2011 Nov 11, A Lebanese man had
a leg blown off after stepping on a mine planted hours earlier by
Syrian troops along Lebanon's northern border.
(AFP, 11/11/11)

2011 Nov 21, US officials said
Hezbollah has partially unraveled the CIA’s spy network in Lebanon.
Several foreign spies working for the CIA were reported captured by
Hezbollah in recent months.
(SFC, 11/22/11, p.A4)

2011 Nov 29, Rockets fired from
Lebanon struck northern Israel for the first time in more than two
years, drawing a burst of Israeli artillery fire across the tense
border. No casualties or major damage were reported.
(AP, 11/29/11)

2011 Nov 30, Lebanon's PM Najib
Mikati said his country has paid its share of funds for a UN-backed
tribunal investigating the 2005 assassination of a Lebanese
statesman, averting a political crisis in the deeply divided country
at a critical time in the Middle East.
(AP, 11/30/11)

2011 Dec 1, Lebanese bankers
said they have adopted strict measures to ensure compliance with
international sanctions against neighboring Syria and are closely
scrutinizing transactions by Syrian clients.
(AFP, 12/1/11)

2011 Dec 2, In Syria hours of
intense shooting and clashes killed at least four people and wounded
dozens more, including an 11-year-old girl who was struck by stray
bullets that whizzed across the border into Lebanon. The European
Union released the names of Syrian officials and companies to be
added to a growing sanctions blacklist.
(AP, 12/2/11)

2011 Dec 4, Pilots at Lebanese
national carrier Middle East Airlines (MEA) ended a five-day strike
in protest at the dismissal of a cancer-stricken colleague which
grounded dozens of flights at Beirut airport.
(AFP, 12/4/11)

2011 Dec 9, In Lebanon a
roadside bomb struck a vehicle carrying UN peacekeepers in the
south, wounding five French soldiers and a Lebanese bystander.
(AP, 12/9/11)

2011 Dec 18, In Lebanon a
masked gunman shot and killed a bodyguard of the commander of the
mainstream Fatah group's armed faction at the Ein el-Hilweh refugee
camp near the southern port city of Sidon. The camp houses more than
65,000 refugees.
(AP, 12/18/11)

2011 Dec 20, Lebanese troops
found the body of American John Redwine, who had been missing for
three days in a remote mountainous area of the country.
(AP, 12/20/11)

2012 Jan 12, Lebanese media and
officials said the Lebanese army has detained a man on suspicion of
collaborating for years with Israel's Mossad spy agency. Elias
Younes, a retired employee of the state telecommunications company
Ogero, was arrested earlier in the week.
(AP, 1/12/12)

2012 Jan 14, Lebanese citizen
Hassan Obeid (17) died in a clinic where he was rushed after being
hit in the stomach by a bullet in his northern hometown of Bkarha
coming from the Syrian side of the border.
(AP, 1/14/12)

2012 Jan 15, UN chief Ban
Ki-moon, speaking in Beirut, called for an end to Israeli occupation
of the Palestinian territories, saying the illegal building of
settlements worked against a two-state solution. Ban Ki-moon also
demanded that Syria's president stop killing his own people.
(AFP, 1/15/12)(AP, 1/15/12)
2012 Jan 15, In Lebanon a
five-story residential building collapsed after days of heavy rains,
killing 27 people, mostly foreign workers. The building's owner,
Michel Saadeh, was arrested the next day.
(AP, 1/16/12)(AFP, 1/18/12)

2012 Jan 21, Lebanese officials
said the Syrian navy arrested three Lebanese fishermen and
confiscated their boat in Lebanese waters off the northern town of
Arida.
(AP, 1/21/12)

2012 Apr 9, Syrian forces fired
across the border into a refugee camp in Turkey, wounding at least
five people. Lebanese journalist Ali Shaaban, who works as a
cameraman for Al Jadeed TV station, was shot and killed as he was
filming in the northern Wadi Khaled area on the Lebanese side of the
border. 12 members of the Syrian security forces were killed as
clashes ensued in several regions. Human Rights Watch said it has
documented the killings by Syrian forces of 85 civilians, including
women and children, and the summary executions of at least 16
wounded or captured opposition fighters. The Syrian rebel army said
it is ready to respect an April 10 truce brokered by UN-Arab League
envoy Kofi Annan if the regime of President Bashar al-Assad abides
by the peace deal.
(AP, 4/9/12)(AFP, 4/9/12)

2012 Apr 22, In Lebanon 7
people were injured when an explosion apparently caused by a bomb
shook the Nocean restaurant at midnight in the coastal town of Tyre.
(AFP, 4/23/12)

2012 May 6, In Lebanon more
than 1,000 people marched in Beirut calling for the establishment of
a secular state in the country which is ruled by a system of
power-sharing along religious lines.
(AFP, 5/6/12)

2012 May 9, In Syria bullets
flying across the Syrian border into Lebanon killed a 70-year-old
woman and wounded her daughter. A roadside bomb struck a Syrian
military truck, wounding 6 soldiers just seconds after a convoy
carrying the head of the UN observer mission passed by.
(AP, 5/9/12)

2012 May 12, In Lebanon an army
officer was killed by sniper fire after clashes broke out between
the army and a group of young Islamists, who were demonstrating in
Tripoli for the release of a terrorism suspect. A resident of the
largely Sunni district of Kobbe was killed in clashes between
factions supporting and opposed to the revolt in neighboring Syria.
Five people were left injured. Shadi Mawlawi, an outspoken Lebanese
critic of Syrian President Bashar Assad, was arrested and set off
several days of clashes in northern Lebanon. Mawlawi was released on
May 22.
(AFP, 5/13/12)(AP, 5/22/12)

2012 May 13, In Lebanon ongoing
clashes in the northern city of Tripoli between factions supporting
and opposed to the revolt in neighboring Syria left one person dead.
(AFP, 5/13/12)

2012 May 14, Clashes in Lebanon
continued for a third day, with gunmen firing assault rifles and
rocket-propelled grenades as sectarian tensions spilled across the
border from Syria.
(AP, 5/14/12)

2012 May 15, Lebanese troops
deployed in tense areas of the northern city of Tripoli after three
days of sectarian clashes killed at least eight people in a
spillover of the conflict in Syria. Officials said two of the eight
people died of their wounds overnight.
(AFP, 5/15/12)

2012 May 18, In Lebanon
shelling between two pro- and anti-Syrian neighborhoods in the port
city of Tripoli left three people wounded. Clashes in the area over
the past week have left 10 people dead.
(AFP, 5/18/12)

2012 May 20, In north Lebanon
army troops shot dead a Sunni cleric when his convoy failed to stop
at a checkpoint, the scene of deadly clashes linked to the uprising
in Syria. Another religious figure in the car of cleric Ahmad Abdel
Wahed, known for his support of the anti-regime uprising in
neighboring Syria, was also killed.
(AFP, 5/20/12)

2012 May 22, In Syria intense
clashes were reported between troops and defectors in the towns of
Atareb in Aleppo province and Kfar Rouma in Idlib. 11 Lebanese
Shiites were abducted in Aleppo province.
(AP, 5/22/12)(AP, 5/23/12)

2012 May 24, Lebanese security
forces stormed a building in Beirut after a nighttime shootout with
gunmen holed up inside a flat, in an incident which left 2 dead and
7 wounded. The spark for the shootout was a personal dispute between
at least one of the dead men and a woman in her early 20s. The dead
man and the woman, detained in the incident, were Syrian nationals.
(AFP, 5/24/12)

2012 Jun 1, In Syria gunmen
killed 11 workers at a state-owned fertilizer factory near Qusair,
Homs province, the second execution-style shooting reported in Syria
in less than a week. A previously unknown Syrian rebel group said it
is holding 11 Lebanese Shiite pilgrims kidnapped on May 22 after
crossing into Syria from Turkey on their way to Lebanon.
(AP, 6/1/12)

2012 Jun 6, Clashes broke out
between Syrian troops and residents of the border town of Arsal in
eastern Lebanon after a Lebanese man was killed and three wounded at
dawn as they tried to cross the border into Syria.
(AFP, 6/6/12)

2012 Jun 18, In Lebanon 2
Palestinians were killed in clashes with the army at refugee camps
that also left several people wounded, including soldiers.
(AFP, 6/18/12)

2012 Jun 25, In Lebanon the
headquarters of Al-Jadeed TV, a leading TV station in Beirut, was
attacked with burning tires after it hosted a hard-line Sunni Muslim
cleric who harshly criticized the country's Shiite Muslim leaders.
(AP, 6/26/12)

2012 Jul 2, Lebanon's General
Security agency said a rocket fired from Lebanon wounded two Syrian
border police. The Syrians pursued the gunmen and a Lebanese General
Security post was hit.
(AFP, 7/2/12)

2012 Jul 3, A US federal judge
ordered Iran to pay more than $813 million in damages and interest
to the families of 241 US soldiers killed in the 1983 bombing of a
Marine barracks in Lebanon. After this opinion, this court will have
issued over $8.8 billion in judgments against Iran as a result of
the October 23, 1983, Beirut bombing.
(AFP, 7/6/12)

2012 Jul 19, In Lebanon
investigative Judge Ghassan Oeidat indicted 88 people allegedly
involved in 2007 fighting against the army in a Palestinian refugee
camp in northern Lebanon, demanding that some of them face the death
penalty. Oeidat also ordered the release of 126 others.
(AP, 7/19/12)

2012 Jul 20, The UN refugee
agency said up to 30,000 Syrians have fled into Lebanon over the
past 48 hours. The UN Security Council added a "final" 30 days to
the mandate of the UN Supervision Mission, tasked with overseeing a
ceasefire that was supposed to have taken effect in April but which
has been violated daily.
(AFP, 7/20/12)(AFP, 7/21/12)

2012 Aug 13, A Syrian rebel
group kidnapped Hassan al-Muqdad, accusing him of being a sniper and
a member of Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah.
(AFP, 8/15/12)

2012 Aug 15, The large Lebanese
Shiite clan called Muqdad claimed it had kidnapped 33 Syrians and a
Turkish man after a family member was abducted two days earlier by a
Syrian rebel group which accused him of being a Hezbollah sniper.
Dozens more Syrians were seized and their shops vandalized by
rioters in southern Shiite areas of Beirut. Rioters closed the road
to Beirut airport and to the border with Syria.
(AFP, 8/16/12)
2012 Aug 15, Saudi Arabia, the
United Arab Emirates and Qatar all ordered their citizens to leave
Lebanon.
(AFP, 8/16/12)

2012 Aug 18, Lebanese security
officials said that five more Syrians were abducted in Beirut's
southern suburbs overnight.
(AP, 8/18/12)

2012 Aug 21, In Lebanon
overnight clashes between supporters and opponents of President
Bashar Assad left two dead and as many as 45 wounded.
(AP, 8/21/12)

2012 Aug 22, Lebanese security
sources said at least eight people have been killed in clashes
between rival pro- and anti-Damascus gunmen in the city of Tripoli.
(AFP, 8/22/12)

2012 Aug 23, In Lebanon fresh
fighting erupted in the northern city of Tripoli leaving one dead
and two wounded, despite a truce to halt days of violence between
pro- and anti-Damascus gunmen.
(AFP, 8/23/12)

2012 Aug 24, In Lebanon new
clashes between pro- and anti-Syrian factions in Tripoli killed two
people holing a fragile truce and stoking fears of a spillover of
bloodshed.
(AFP, 8/24/12)

2012 Aug 25, In eastern Lebanon
armed men kidnapped a Kuwaiti. An official said there had been a
number of kidnappings for ransom which are unrelated to political
tensions.
(AFP, 8/25/12)
2012 Aug 25, Syrian rebels
freed one of 11 Lebanese Shiite pilgrims they have been holding
since May 22, in a move aiming to ease cross-border tensions.
(AFP, 8/25/12)

2012 Sep 3, In Lebanon a
smoking ban in all closed public spaces, including coffee shops,
restaurants and bars, went into force under new legislation that
promises hefty fines for lawbreakers.
(AFP, 9/3/12)

2012 Sep 8, Sierra Leone said
that 10 suspected Iranian ships "hiding" under the Sierra Leonean
flag "have recently been removed from the register." The action was
in relation to a vessel that was seized in Lebanon recently carrying
arms for Syria, and allegedly flying the Sierra Leone flag.
(AP, 9/9/12)

2012 Sep 14, Pope Benedict XVI
appealed for peace and reconciliation among religions as violence
over an anti-Islam movie spilled over into Lebanon within hours of
his arrival. One protester was killed in the northern city of
Tripoli in clashes with security forces after a crowd set fire to a
KFC and a Hardee's restaurant to protest against an anti-Muslim
film.
(AP, 9/14/12)

2012 Sep 15, In Lebanon Pope
Benedict XVI appealed for religious freedom in the Middle East,
calling it fundamental for stability in a region bloodied by
sectarian strife.
(AP, 9/15/12)

2012 Oct 2, A Lebanese security
official says Hezbollah commander Ali Hussein Nassif and several
other fighters from the militant group have been killed in Syria.
(AP, 10/2/12)

2012 Oct 12, Lebanon's state
run news agency said three members of an al-Qaida-inspired group
have escaped from a prison in eastern Beirut.
(AP, 10/12/12)

2012 Oct 19, In Lebanon a car
bomb ripped through eastern Beirut in the most serious blast this
city has seen in years. 8 people were killed, including intelligence
chief, Brig. Gen. Wissam al-Hassan. His probe over the summer led to
the arrest of former Information Minister Michel Samaha, one of
Syrian Pres. Assad's most loyal allies in Lebanon.
(AP, 10/19/12)(AP, 10/20/12)

2012 Oct 22, Lebanese troops
launched a major security operation to open all roads and force
gunmen off the streets. Sectarian clashes overnight left four dead
as Syria's civil war spilled into neighboring countries.
(AP, 10/22/12)

2012 Nov 11, In southern
Lebanon shooting between Sunni and Shiite Muslim gunmen killed three
people and wounded at least five in the port city of Sidon.
(AP, 11/11/12)

2012 Nov 24, Lebanese soldiers
raided an apartment in the country's south and arrested five Syrian
nationals for possession of explosives.
(AP, 11/24/12)

2012 Nov 30, Lebanon dispatched
troops to Tripoli as a precautionary measure after an announcement
that 20 Lebanese Sunnis had been killed inside Syria while fighting
alongside rebels, who are predominantly Sunnis as well.
(AP, 12/1/12)

2012 Dec 2, The Syrian conflict
spilled into Lebanon, after Lebanese troops exchanged fire with
rebels across the border late today.
(AP, 12/3/12)

2012 Dec 5, In Lebanon gunmen
loyal to opposite sides in neighboring Syria's civil war battled in
the streets of Tripoli where two days of fighting killed at least
five people and wounded 45.
(AP, 12/5/12)

2012 Dec 9, In Lebanon four
people were killed in fighting in the city of Tripoli between gunmen
loyal to opposite sides in Syria's civil war.
(AP, 12/9/12)

2012 In Lebanon the
Beirut-based pan-Arab satellite channel Al-Mayadeen was launched. It
was backed by Iran and Syria.
(Econ, 2/14/15, p.41)

2013 Jan 9, The fiercest winter
storm to hit the Mideast in years brought a rare foot of snow to
Jordan, caused fatal accidents in Lebanon and the West Bank, and
disrupted traffic on the Suez Canal in Egypt. At least eight people
died across the region.
(AP, 1/9/13)

2013 Jan 18, In Lebanon
protesters demanding the release of Islamist prisoners in the city
of Tripoli threw a grenade at the convoy of Sports and Youth
Minister Faisal Karameh that set fire to one of the vehicles. 4
people were wounded.
(AP, 1/18/13)

2013 Jan 22, Syrian government
forces and rebels battled in the suburbs of Damascus and elsewhere.
Four buses carrying Russian citizens escaping the civil war crossed
into Lebanon, in the first evacuation organized by Moscow since the
start of the conflict nearly two years ago.
(AP, 1/22/13)

2013 Jan 30, The Lebanese
military said that Israeli warplanes have sharply increased their
activity over Lebanon in the past week, including at least 12
sorties in less than 24 hours in the country's south.
(AP, 1/30/13)

2013 Feb 1, In Lebanon at least
three people were killed and 10 others wounded in clashes between
the army and gunmen in the northeastern town of Arsal near the
border with Syria. Residents of Arsal, a Sunni Muslim town, are
known to be sympathetic to the Syrian opposition, and arms smuggling
into Syria is widespread in the area.
(AP, 2/1/13)

2013 Feb 4, A Lebanese judge
issued arrest warrants for a top Syrian intelligence official and
his aide for their alleged involvement in a bombing plot in Lebanon.
Brig. Gen. Ali Mamlouk was accused of being involved with Lebanon's
former information minister, Michel Samaha, who allegedly plotted a
wave of attacks in Lebanon at the behest of Syria.
(AP, 2/4/13)

2013 Feb 5, Bulgaria linked
Lebanon's militant group Hezbollah to the bomb attack on a bus last
July that killed five Israeli tourists. Two of the suspects linked
to the bombing had entered the country with an Australian and a
Canadian passport.
(AP, 2/5/13)

2013 Feb 6, A top Bulgarian
security official said the two living suspects behind a bus attack
that killed five Israeli tourists in Bulgaria last year have been
identified and both are now living in Lebanon.
(AP, 2/6/13)

2013 Feb 20, A Lebanese judge
indicted three people, including a former Cabinet minister and a top
Syrian intelligence general, in a bombing plot in Lebanon, a move
that could raise tension in Lebanon over the civil war in
neighboring Syria. Judge Riad Abu Ghaida demanded the death penalty
for former information minister, Michel Samaha, Syrian Brig. Gen.
Ali Mamlouk and a Syrian colonel, identified only by his first name,
Adnan.
(AP, 2/20/13)

2013 Mar 15, In central Lebanon
at least eight Syrians were killed and 29 were injured when the bus
they were traveling in from Syria overturned in the mountains.
(AP, 3/15/13)

2013 Mar 21, Syrian state-run
TV in Damascus said authorities have handed over to Beirut Hassane
Serourto, a Lebanese fighter captured inside Syria in an ambush by
government troops on Nov 30.
(AP, 3/21/13)

2013 Mar 22, Lebanon’s PM Najib
Mikati submitted his resignation.
(Econ, 3/30/13, p.47)
2013 Mar 22, In Lebanon gunmen
who support and oppose Syrian President Bashar Assad clashed in the
northern city of Tripoli, leaving six people dead and more than 20
wounded.
(AP, 3/23/13)

2013 Mar 23, Lebanese President
Michel Suleiman formally accepted the resignation of PM Najib
Mikati, who stepped down blaming government infighting during a time
of rising sectarian tensions.
(AP, 3/23/13)

2013 Mar 30, In Lebanon shells
from inside Syria exploded in 4 villages late today near the
northern border. Residents reported an unpleasant smell after the
strikes.
(AP, 3/31/13)

2013 Apr 3, a Syrian jet fired
a missile that slammed into a house on the outskirts of the Lebanese
border town of Arsal.
(AP, 4/3/13)

2013 Apr 6, Lebanon’s President
Michel Suleiman asked Tammam Salam (68) to form a new Cabinet. The
Beirut legislator and former culture minister was chosen for the job
by 124 members of the 128-seat parliament.
(AP, 4/6/13)

2013 Apr 20, On the Lebanese
side of the Syrian border, schools were evacuated in the mostly
Shiite villages of al-Qasr, Bouweydah and Hawch amid fears that
Syria's rebels could target the residents.
(AP, 4/20/13)

2013 Apr 24, In northern
Lebanon a grenade, left behind from the 2007 fighting in a
Palestinian refugee camp exploded and wounded seven schoolchildren.
(AP, 4/24/13)
2013 Apr 24, Lebanon's leading
caricaturist Pierre Sadek (76), died. He was famous for his decades
of work poking fun at politicians.
(AP, 4/24/13)

2013 Apr 25, Israel shot down a
drone as it approached its northern coast from neighboring Lebanon,
raising suspicions that the Hezbollah militant group was behind the
infiltration attempt.
(AP, 4/25/13)

2013 Apr 30, Sheik Hassan
Nasrallah, the leader of Lebanon's Hezbollah militant group, said
that Syrian rebels will not be able to defeat President Bashar
Assad's regime militarily, warning that Syria's "real friends,"
including his Iranian-backed militant group, were ready to intervene
on the government's side.
(AP, 4/30/13)
2013 Apr 30, Lebanese security
officials detained Hussein Hojeiri, the man behind the 2011
kidnapping of 7 Estonian tourists, in the eastern Bekaa Valley. He
confessed to carrying out the kidnapping, purportedly on the orders
of an Iraqi al-Qaida figure.
(AP, 5/2/13)

2013 May 11, Canada deported
Mahmoud Mohammad Issa Mohammad, a former Popular Front for the
Liberation of Palestine commando, to Lebanon. He had taken part in a
1968 assault on an El Al jet in Athens that killed an Israeli man.
(Reuters, 5/13/13)

2013 May 23, In Lebanon
opponents and supporters of Syrian President Bashar Assad traded
heavy machine gun fire and mortar shells in the port city of
Tripoli, leaving 5 people dead in what was described as some of the
heaviest fighting there in years.
(AP, 5/23/13)

2013 May 25, In Lebanon 4
people were killed by sniper fire as Syrian fighting spilled over,
bringing the week's death toll to 29 including three Lebanese
soldiers.
(AP, 5/25/13)

2013 May 26, In Lebanon a pair
of rockets slammed into a car dealership and a residential building
in strongholds of Lebanon's Hezbollah militant group in Beirut. They
struck just hours after Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah vowed to
propel Syrian President Bashar Assad to victory.
(AP, 5/26/13)

2013 May 28, In Lebanon gunmen
killed 3 soldiers in a drive-by shooting on a government checkpoint
near the Syrian border. Two rockets fired from Syria struck the
Lebanese town of Hermel, wounding several people.
(AP, 5/28/13)

2013 May 31, Lebanon's
parliament extended its term 17 months because of deteriorating
security conditions related to Syria's civil war. It postponed
elections from June until November 2014.
(AP, 5/31/13)

2013 Jun 2, In Lebanon a
Hezbollah fighter and several rebels were killed in overnight
clashes in a remote area between Baalbek and the Syrian border.
Clashes raged into the night between Sunnis and Alawites in Tripoli,
killing one person and wounding at least 14 people.
(AP, 6/2/13)(AP, 6/3/13)

2013 Jun 9, In Lebanon men
wielding batons and wearing yellow arm bands evoking Hezbollah
attacked protesters outside the Iranian Embassy in Beirut during a
rally against the militant group's participation in the Syrian civil
war. One protester was killed.
(AP, 6/9/13)

2013 Jun 11, In northeastern
Lebanon six rockets landed in Hermel, wounding four residents.
Syrian rebels have threatened to punish Hezbollah for its support of
Assad.
(AP, 6/11/13)

2013 Jun 12, A Syrian
government helicopter fired three missiles on a border town in
Lebanon, lightly wounding one person. Heavy clashes were reported in
Homs, mostly in the neighborhood of Wadi Sayeh. At least 30 Shiite
Muslims were killed in Hatlah, a village in Deir el-Zour province.
Antigovernment activists put the total at 60 and said most of the
dead were pro-government militia fighters.
(AP, 6/12/13)(SFC, 6/13/13, p.A4)

2013 Jun 14, Hezbollah's leader
Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah vowed that his Lebanon-based militants would
keep fighting in Syria "wherever needed" after the US agreed to arm
the rebels in the civil war.
(AP, 6/15/13)

2013 Jun 16, Four Lebanese
Shiite Muslim men were found killed in an ambush in northeastern
Lebanon.
(AP, 6/16/13)

2013 Jun 18, In Lebanon clashes
erupted between unknown gunmen and followers of Sheik Ahmad
al-Assir, a radical Sunni cleric, in an eastern suburb of the port
city of Sidon. Two people were killed. Al-Assir has threatened to
clear apartments occupied by Hezbollah supporters in the mostly
Sunni city.
(AP, 6/18/13)

2013 Jun 20, Lebanese
demonstrators clashed with police in downtown Beirut during a
protest against the extension of parliament's term earlier this
month.
(AP, 6/20/13)
2013 Jun 20, Saudi Arabia said
it plans to deport Lebanese citizens who support Hezbollah because
of the militant group's role in the Syrian civil war.
(AP, 6/20/13)

2013 Jun 23, In Lebanon clashes
erupted in the south between factions supporting opposing sides in
the Syrian civil war leaving 2 Lebanese soldiers killed in Sidon.
(AP, 6/23/13)

2013 Jun 24, Lebanese army
units battled followers of hard-line Sunni cleric Sheikh Ahmad
al-Assir holed up in a mosque complex in Sidon, the second day of
fighting that has left at least 16 soldiers dead and 50 wounded. At
least three of al-Assir's supporters died in the fighting.
(AP, 6/24/13)

2013 Jun 25, Lebanese troops
detonated booby traps at a complex captured from followers of a
hardline Sunni cleric, securing the area after two days of fighting
in the port city of Sidon. Official reports said at least 17
soldiers were killed and 50 wounded in the fighting while more than
20 of al-Assir's supporters died in the battle.
(AP, 6/25/13)

2013 Jul 5, More than 300
Lebanese rallied in the coastal city of Sidon in support of Sheikh
Ahmed al-Assir, a fugitive Sunni Islamist cleric, a day after an
audio recording believed to be his voice urged followers to
demonstrate.
(Reuters, 7/5/13)

2013 Jul 9, In Lebanon a car
bomb rocked a stronghold of the Shiite militant Hezbollah group
south of Beirut, setting several cars on fire and wounding at least
53 people.
(AP, 7/9/13)(SFC, 7/10/13, p.A3)

2013 Jul 11, The Lebanese
Psychiatric Society said homosexuality is not an illness and does
not need to be treated.
(Econ, 7/20/13, p.45)

2013 Jul 17, Gunmen
assassinated Mohammed Darrar Jammo (44), a pro-government Syrian
journalist, at his home in southern Lebanon, shooting him nearly 30
times in the latest sign of Syria's civil war spilling over into its
smaller neighbor. On July 19 the Lebanese army said the killers had
been detained and their weapons seized. On July 30 Lebanese news
reported that Jammo's Lebanese wife, Siham Younes, and her brother
and nephew were arrested after an investigation showed they were
behind the killing.
(AP, 7/17/13)(Reuters, 7/19/13)(AP, 7/30/13)

2013 Jul 22, The EU agreed to
put the armed wing of Hezbollah on its terrorism blacklist, a move
driven by concerns over the Lebanese militant group's roles in a bus
bombing in Bulgaria and the Syrian war.
(Reuters, 7/22/13)

2013 Aug 7, An explosion at the
border with Lebanon wounded 4 Israeli soldiers. The Lebanese Army
said the troops were 400 meters inside Lebanese territory when the
blast occurred. The area was known for having land mines.
(Reuters, 8/7/13)

2013 Aug 9, In Lebanon gunmen
abducted a Turkish Airlines pilot and his assistant in Beirut,
forcing them from a bus as it took them from the airport in the
early hours of the morning. A group claimed responsibility for the
abduction in the name of nine Lebanese Shi'ite Muslims kidnapped
last year in Azaz near the Turkish-Syrian border. On Aug 20 a
Lebanese prosecutor charged 13 people in connection with the
kidnapping.
(Reuters, 8/9/13)(AP, 8/20/13)

2013 Aug 11, Lebanese security
forces said gunmen have shot the Sunni mayor of Arsal town and
killed two of his companions just hours after he oversaw a hostage
swap with a rival clan in an area increasingly riven by sectarian
divisions.
(Reuters, 8/11/13)

2013 Aug 15, In Lebanon a car
bomb ripped through the southern Beirut stronghold of the militant
group Hezbollah. 24 people were killed.
(Reuters, 8/16/13)

2013 Aug 16, In Lebanon a car
bombing, blamed on Sunni extremists, killed 22 people in a Shiite
neighborhood south of Beirut.
(SFC, 8/17/13, p.A2)

2013 Aug 23, The Lebanese
government said its troops captured a truck carrying gas masks near
the Syrian border.
(AP, 8/23/13)
2013 Aug 23, In Lebanon twin
explosions outside two mosques killed at least 47 people and wounded
hundreds in apparently coordinated attacks in the northern city of
Tripoli. Suspect Sheik Ahmad al-Ghareb was arrested the next day.
(Reuters, 8/23/13)(AP, 8/24/13)(SSFC, 8/25/13,
p.A5)

2013 Aug 30, Lebanon charged
five men, including a Sunni Muslim cleric close to the Syrian
government, over bomb attacks on two mosques in the northern city of
Tripoli last week that killed at least 42 people.
(Reuters, 8/30/13)

2013 Sep 28, In Lebanon
Hezbollah fighters and residents of the eastern city of Baalbek
exchanged fire, leaving 3 dead and six wounded.
(AP, 9/28/13)

2013 Oct 10, The Special
Tribunal for Lebanon in The Hague published an arrest warrant for a
fifth suspect in the 2005 bombing on the Beirut waterfront that
killed Lebanese prime minister Rafik al-Hariri and 21 others, almost
tipping the country into civil war. The court said judges had
secretly indicted Hassan Habib Merhi on July 31 but had given the
Lebanese government time to attempt to arrest the suspect before
making the warrant public.
(Reuters, 10/10/13)

2013 Oct 22, In Lebanon a child
(13) was killed and 11 other people wounded in a gunfight in Tripoli
between supporters and opponents of Syrian President Bashar
al-Assad.
(AFP, 10/22/13)

2013 Oct 24, Lebanese security
officials said at least 6 people have been killed and 50 wounded in
fighting in Tripoli over the past four days.
(AP, 10/24/13)

2013 Oct 26, In Lebanon 3 more
people died overnight in Tripoli in clashes between supporters and
opponents of Syria's regime.
(AFP, 10/26/13)

2013 Oct 28, Lebanon's army
began deploying in Tripoli following a week of bloodshed in which 14
have people died and more than 80 were wounded. Two more people died
Tripoli in fighting between supporters and opponents of Syrian
President Bashar al-Assad and the Lebanese army.
(AFP, 10/28/13)(Reuters, 10/28/13)

2013 Nov 12, In Lebanon Sunni
sheikh Saadeddine Ghiyeh, a cleric close to the Syrian regime of
President Bashar al-Assad, was shot dead in the northern town of
Tripoli.
(AFP, 11/12/13)

2013 Nov 14, In Lebanon Hassan
Nasralla, the leader of the militant Hezbollah group, showed up at a
Shiite religious ceremony in southern Beirut, vowing to keep his
fighters in neighboring Syria as long as needed to shore up
President Bashar Assad's struggle against Syria's rebels.
(AP, 11/14/13)

2013 Nov 16, A local official
said thousands of Syrian refugees have poured into Lebanon over the
past two days as fighting between government forces and rebels has
flared near the border.
(AFP, 11/16/13)

2013 Nov 19, In Lebanon 2
suicide bombers detonated explosions outside the Iranian Embassy in
a mainly Shiite district of Beirut, killing 25 people, including the
Iranian cultural attaché, apparently in retaliation for the Lebanese
group Hezbollah's support of Syrian President Assad.
(AP, 11/19/13)(AFP, 11/20/13)

2013 Nov 23, Lebanese
authorities said they have identified the two men who launched a
double suicide attack on the Iranian embassy this week which killed
25 people in Hezbollah's southern Beirut bastion.
(AFP, 11/23/13)

2013 Nov 27, In Syria a nephew
of Lebanon's agriculture minister was killed along with three other
Hezbollah fighters in the Qalamoun region north of Damascus.
(AFP, 11/28/13)

2013 Nov 30, In Lebanon clashes
between supporters and opponents of the Syrian government killed 4
people in the northern city of Tripoli.
(Reuters, 11/30/13)

2013 Dec 1, In Lebanon 3 people
were killed overnight in fighting in the northern city of Tripoli. A
security source said 10 people, including a woman and an off-duty
soldier, have been killed in two days of sectarian clashes in
northern Lebanon linked to the war in neighbouring Syria.
(AP, 12/1/13)(AFP, 12/1/13)

2013 Dec 2, Lebanon’s
government authorized the army to take control of Tripoli following
three days of sectarian clashes that left 12 dead.
(SFC, 12/3/13, p.A2)

2013 Dec 4, In Lebanon Hassan
al-Laqis (53), a senior Hezbollah leader, was killed overnight upon
returning home from work in Beirut. Hezbollah accused Israel for the
assassination.
(AP, 12/4/13)(SFC, 12/5/13, p.A5)

2013 Dec 15, Israeli soldier
Sgt Shlomi Cohen (31) was killed by a Lebanese soldier along the
border. Israeli troops searching the area fired towards two suspects
who were standing on the other side of the border, hitting one of
them.
(AFP, 12/16/13)

2013 Dec 17, In eastern Lebanon
a car bomb exploded at dawn near a Hezbollah position, causing an
unknown number of casualties.
(AFP, 12/17/13)

2013 Dec 21, In Lebanon
Hezbollah fighters ambushed a group of Syrian rebels as they
infiltrated through a smuggler route outside Nahle. About 30 rebels
were reported killed.
(SFC, 12/25/13, p.A2)

2013 Dec 27, In Lebanon a
powerful car bomb tore through a business district in the center of
Beirut killing Mohammed Chatah (Shatah), a former finance minister
and senior aide to former PM Saad Hariri. 7 others were also killed
in the blast. Hariri blamed Hezbollah for the assassination. A
Lebanese teenager seen posing for a group "selfie" in front of the
bomb-laden car moments before it exploded died of his injuries the
next day.
(AP, 12/27/13)(AFP, 12/28/13)(Econ, 1/4/14, p.34)

2013 Dec 29, Lebanon's
President Michel Suleiman said Saudi Arabia is giving the Lebanese
army $3 billion to buy equipment from France, calling it the largest
grant ever given to the country's armed forces.
(Reuters, 12/29/13)(SSFC, 1/5/14, p.A5)
2013 Dec 29, The Israeli
military fired a barrage of shells into southern Lebanon in
retaliation after five Katyusha-style rockets were launched against
the Jewish state. The attacks struck uninhabited areas of both
Israel and Lebanon without causing any casualties or damage.
(AFP, 12/29/13)

2013 Dec 30, Lebanese forces
fired on Syrian aircraft that violated the country's airspace, the
first time they have done so since Syria's uprising broke out three
years ago.
(AP, 12/30/13)

2014 Jan 1, Lebanon’s defense
minister said Lebanese troops have arrested Saudi citizen Majid
al-Majid, the "emir" of the Abdullah Azzam Brigades, an
al-Qaeda-linked group that claimed a double suicide bombing at the
Iranian embassy in Beirut in November. DNA testing confirmed the
identity of al-Majid.
(AFP, 1/1/14)(AP, 1/3/14)
2014 Jan 1, Syrian warplanes
bombed a barren range of Lebanese hills used by Syrian rebels and
refugees to cross between the two countries, wounding at least 10
Syrians who were rushed to hospital in a nearby Lebanese town.
(AP, 1/1/14)

2014 Jan 2, In Lebanon a large
car bomb killed 5 people and wounded at least 20 in a Hezbollah
bastion in south Beirut. The al Qaeda-linked militant group Islamic
State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS aka ISIL)) soon claimed
responsibility. On Jan 6 an employee of Hezbollah's Al-Manar
television died from wounds sustained in a suicide bombing.
(AFP, 1/2/14)(Reuters, 1/4/14)(AFP, 1/6/14)

2014 Jan 4, The Lebanese army
said Saudi citizen Majid al-Majid, the "emir" of the Abdullah Azzam
Brigades fighting in Syria, died while undergoing treatment at the
central military hospital.
(AP, 1/4/14)

2014 Jan 5, In Lebanon one man
was shot dead and six people were wounded in clashes in Tripoli
between districts that support rival sides in neighboring Syria's
civil war.
(Reuters, 1/5/14)

2014 Jan 16, In Lebanon a
suicide car bomber killed 3 people in a Hezbollah stronghold on the
northern border with Syria.
(Reuters, 1/16/14)

2014 Jan 21, In Lebanon a
suicide bomber killed 4 people in a residential district of southern
Beirut known for its support of the powerful Shi'ite Muslim military
and political movement Hezbollah.
(Reuters, 1/21/14)

2014 Feb 1, In Lebanon a car
bomb blew up near a gas station in the Shiite town of Hermel in the
northeast, killing at least 3 people.
(AP, 2/2/14)

2014 Feb 3, In Lebanon a
suicide bomber detonated an explosive belt inside a public minibus
in Choueifa, home to a mixed Christian and Druze population, killing
at least one person.
(AFP, 2/3/14)

2014 Feb 12, Lebanon's army
arrested Naim Abbas, a senior al Qaeda-linked militant, described by
security sources as a "mastermind of car bombs" that targeted
Shi'ite areas of the country.
(Reuters, 2/12/14)
2014 Feb 12, Syrian government
forces and fighters from Lebanese ally Hezbollah pounded Syria's
strategic border town of Yabroud in apparent preparation for a new
offensive to flush out rebels. At least 51 people were reportedly
killed in Aleppo, mainly by barrel bombs dropped on eight rebel-held
districts from helicopters.
(Reuters, 2/12/14)(AP, 2/13/14)

2014 Feb 15, Lebanon announced
a new government, breaking a 10-month political deadlock during
which spillover violence from neighboring Syria worsened internal
instability.
(Reuters, 2/15/14)

2014 Feb 19, In Lebanon 2
suicide bombers targeted the Iranian cultural center in Beirut,
killing 8 people and themselves in an attack claimed by Sunni
militants who said it was a response to the intervention of Iran and
Hezbollah in the Syrian war. On March 8 the al-Qaida-linked Abdullah
Azzam Brigades issued a statement on militant websites apologizing
for the civilian deaths.
(Reuters, 2/19/14)(AFP, 2/20/14)(AP, 3/8/14)

2014 Feb 20, In Lebanon
Abdelrahman Diab (Abdel Rahman Youssef), an Alawite official in the
Arab Democratic Party, was gunned down in Tripoli. A 2nd man, a
Sunni, was also killed.
(AFP, 2/20/14)(Reuters, 2/20/14)

2014 Feb 23, In southern
Lebanon 2 UN peacekeepers died and three were injured in a car
accident.
(AFP, 2/23/14)

2014 Feb 24, In Lebanon actress
and UN special envoy Angelina Jolie completed a surprise 3-day visit
to Lebanon to draw attention to the challenges facing thousands of
Syrian refugee children and to highlight the massive displacement
Syria's three-year conflict has created.
(AP, 2/24/14)
2014 Feb 24, Two Israeli raids
hit a Hezbollah target on the border of Lebanon and Syria. Lebanon's
National News Agency soon confirmed the report, adding that the
raids struck the countryside of the Lebanese border town of Nabi
Sheet.
(AFP, 2/25/14)

2014 Mar 5, Israel's army
struck 2 members of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah as they
tried to plant a bomb near the Israeli-Syrian border.
(AFP, 3/5/14)

2014 Mar 13, In Lebanon clashes
broke out in Tripoli after gunmen fatally shot a Sunni man who had
Alawite relatives and lived in a mostly Alawite area of the city.
(Reuters, 3/16/14)

2014 Mar 15, In Lebanon 10
people were reported killed in the last 48 hours of clashes in
Tripoli linked to the conflict in neighboring Syria.
(Reuters, 3/15/14)

2014 Mar 16, In Lebanon a
soldier and a civilian were killed in fighting between Sunni Muslims
and Alawites in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli, bringing the
death toll from four days of clashes to 12. A suicide car bomb
attack in a Hezbollah-dominated area of eastern Lebanon, near the
Syrian border, left two people dead.
(Reuters, 3/16/14)(AFP, 3/17/14)

2014 Mar 18, Gunmen from
Lebanon's militant Hezbollah group and local Shiite residents
tightened their chokehold on Arsal, a Sunni town near the Syrian
border, sparking concerns the standoff would cut off aid to
thousands of Syrian refugees stranded in the area.
(AP, 3/18/14)

2014 Mar 21, In Lebanon people
were killed in Tripoli in fighting between supporters and opponents
of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
(Reuters, 3/21/14)

2014 Mar 23, In Lebanon
hours-long clashes overnight in a Beirut neighborhood between
supporters and opponents of Syrian President Bashar Assad killed one
person, prompting Lebanese troops to deploy in the area to calm
tensions.
(AP, 3/23/14)

2014 Mar 27, Lebanon’s
government ordered the army and security forces to control the
security situation in Tripoli and to seize arms caches in the city.
A soldier was killed by two masked men on motorbikes in Tripoli. A
day earlier a municipal worker was murdered in the same fashion.
(AFP, 3/28/14)

2014 Mar 28, A Lebanese
policeman was killed by unknown gunmen in the northern city of
Tripoli.
(AFP, 3/28/14)

2014 Mar 29, In Lebanon 3
soldiers were killed when a suicide bomber detonated his vehicle at
a checkpoint at Aqabet al-Jurd in the Arsal region.
(AFP, 3/30/14)

2014 Mar, In Syria Hezbollah
commandos infiltrated Syrian rebel-held territory near the Lebanese
border, watching rebel fighters come and go from a two-story villa
before slipping inside to plant a powerful bomb. The next morning,
they detonated it as three rebel explosive experts and four
assistants met inside, turning the villa to rubble in seconds.
(AP, 4/12/14)

2014 Apr 1, Lebanon's
parliament approved a much-anticipated law that protects women
against domestic violence after a years-long campaign by women's
rights activists and the recent slaying of four women.
(AP, 4/1/14)

2014 Apr 2, Lebanese troops
moved into a restive Sunni area in the northern city of Tripoli, in
the second stage of a plan aimed at quelling deadly Syria-linked
violence there.
(AFP, 4/2/14)

2014 Apr 3, The number of
Syrian refugees who have fled to Lebanon officially topped 1
million.
(Reuters, 4/3/14)

2014 Apr 7, In Lebanon at least
8 people were killed in fighting between Palestinian factions at the
Mieh Mieh refugee camp near Sidon.
(Reuters, 4/7/14)

2014 Apr 11, Lebanon launched a
fourth round of polio immunization, trying to prevent the disease
spreading from neighboring Syria along with the tide of refugees
fleeing the three-year conflict.
(Reuters, 4/11/14)

2014 Apr 12, Police in Lebanon
arrested Marcello Dell’Utri, the man who created Forze Italia! in
the 1990s. He had disappeared in the face of a 7-year sentence for
aiding and abetting mobsters.
(Econ, 4/19/14, p.47)

2014 May 8, Lebanon recorded
its first case of the often-fatal Middle East respiratory virus
(MERS). The patient had recently returned from a visit to several
Gulf countries, including Saudi Arabia.
(AP, 5/9/14)

2014 May 9, Lebanon braced for
a summer drought, after a record dry winter exacerbated by a massive
influx of Syrian refugees and longstanding water management
problems.
(AFP, 5/9/14)

2014 May 14, In Lebanon
thousands of teachers, civil servants and children rallied outside
parliament in the biggest of a year of pay protests as the assembly
debated a much-delayed bill on public sector salaries.
(Reuters, 5/14/14)

2014 May 28, Cardinal Bechara
Rai, head of Lebanon's largest group of Christians, the Maronite
Catholics, made two politically charged stops in his
precedent-setting pilgrimage to Israel.
(AP, 5/28/14)

2014 Jun 20, In eastern Lebanon
a suicide bomber detonated his vehicle near a police checkpoint,
killing one person amid rising fears of renewed violence in this
volatile country sparked by a stunning offensive by Sunni insurgents
in nearby Iraq. In Beirut troops raided two hotels arresting 17
suspected members of an al-Qaida breakaway group allegedly plotting
terrorist attacks.
(AP, 6/20/14)(SFC, 6/21/14, p.A2)

2014 Jun 24, A Lebanese
security source said an overnight suicide blast in Beirut's southern
suburbs, Hezbollah's main bastion, killed a security officer who had
tried to stop the bomber.
(AFP, 6/24/14)

2014 Jun 25, The Lebanese army
said a security operation in the country's north has resulted in the
arrest of a 'terrorist cell' plotting the assassination of a
high-ranking officer in the security forces. A bomber detonated his
explosives at Beirut's Duroy Hotel during a security raid, and died
in the blast. Another man was wounded and was being questioned by
security agents at a Beirut hospital. The next day both were
reported to be citizens of Saudi Arabia.
(AP, 6/25/14)(AP, 6/26/14)

2014 Jul 2, In Lebanon a
grenade attack on a coffee shop in the northern city of Tripoli
wounded four people.
(AP, 7/2/14)

2014 Jul 4, A Syrian warplane
carried out three airstrikes in an area about four miles (seven km)
within Lebanese territory, killing a 12-year-old boy.
(AP, 7/4/14)

2014 Jul 7, Lebanon charged 28
people with planning to carry out suicide bomb attacks and belonging
to the militant group Islamic State. Seven of the 28 charged by
prosecutors were in custody.
(Reuters, 7/7/14)

2014 Jul 17, Lebanon filed a
complaint against Israel at the UN Security Council, saying it had
violated its sovereignty by opening fire on its territory in
retaliation for rocket attacks. The foreign ministry said Israel
fired 102 shells at Lebanon between July 11 and 14.
(AFP, 7/17/14)

2014 Jul 22, Lebanese conscript
Atef Saadeddine (b.1991) defected to the Al-Qaeda-affiliated
Al-Nusra Front. Gunmen who crossed from Syria "looted Lebanese army
weapons" and Saadeddine fled with them back across the border.
(AFP, 7/24/14)

2014 Jul 24, Air Algerie Flight
5017 carrying 116 people from Burkina Faso to Algeria's capital
disappeared from radar early today over northern Mali after heavy
rains were reported. Air navigation services lost track of the MD-83
about 50 minutes after takeoff from Ouagadougou. Half the dead were
from France. Others included at least 19 Lebanese citizens.
(AP, 7/24/14)(SSFC, 7/27/14, p.A4)

2014 Jul 30, Lebanese sources
said Hezbollah commander Ibrahim al-Haj has been killed in a battle
near Mosul, indicating the Lebanese group that is already fighting
in Syria's civil war may be involved in a second conflict in the
region.
(Reuters, 7/30/14)

2014 Aug 2, In Lebanon fighting
began in the eastern border town of Arsal after troops detained
Syrian citizen Imad Ahmad Jomaa, who identified himself as a member
of the Nusra Front.
(AP, 8/3/14)

2014 Aug 3, Syrian rebels
killed 8 Lebanese soldiers and claimed to have captured a dozen
security force members in a cross-border raid. Lebanese soldiers
traded fire with Islamist gunmen and shelled areas around the border
town of Arsal aiming to roll back the biggest incursion by militants
into Lebanon since Syria's civil war began.
(AP, 8/3/14)(Reuters, 8/3/14)

2014 Aug 5, In Lebanon a girl
(12) was killed and 11 people injured in Tripoli in violence linked
to clashes on the Syrian border.
(AFP, 8/5/14)
2014 Aug 5, Saudi Arabian King
Abdullah granted $1 billion to help the Lebanese army to bolster
security as they battle militants who have seized the border town of
Arsal on the Syrian frontier.
(Reuters, 8/6/14)

2014 Aug 6, Lebanon's army
surrounded Arsal, a border town occupied by Islamist militants, as
army and Islamist militants clashed despite a 24-hour ceasefire
agreed to end five days of fighting that has killed dozens.
(Reuters, 8/6/14)

2014 Aug 7, In Lebanon
militants from Syria who overran the border town of Arsal mostly
withdrew back across the rugged hills separating the two countries
as a cease-fire appeared to hold, allowing Lebanese troops to free 7
fellow soldiers and ambulances to evacuate dozens of casualties. At
least 17 soldiers were killed in the clashes, while 10 remained
missing, along with an unknown number of policemen.
(AP, 8/7/14)

2014 Aug 8, Islamist militants
holding 19 Lebanese soldiers seized during an incursion into Lebanon
said they had demanded the release of Islamist prisoners in exchange
for letting their captives go.
(Reuters, 8/8/14)

2014 Aug 9, In Lebanon fighters
identified as Islamist militants crossed in from Syria, triggering
an exchange of fire with villagers near Kfar Qouq who forced them
back across the border.
(Reuters, 8/9/14)

2014 Aug 14, Lebanon charged 43
Syrians, including an Islamist commander whose arrest sparked five
days of fighting between Islamists and the Lebanese army, with
belonging to armed terrorist groups and seeking to establish an
Islamic emirate.
(Reuters, 8/14/14)

2014 Aug 19, Fighters from
Lebanon's Hezbollah reportedly killed Abu Abdullah al-Iraqi, a top
jihadist from the Islamic State group in Syria, who allegedly
planned bloody attacks in Lebanon.
(AFP, 8/19/14)

2014 Aug 23, A rocket fired
from Lebanese territory hit the Upper Galilee in northern Israel on
the 47th day of a war against the Islamist movement Hamas in and
around Gaza.
(AFP, 8/23/14)

2014 Aug 28, Lebanese troops
clashed with gunmen in Arsal, a mainly Sunni Muslim area near the
Syrian border where there was deadly fighting with rebels from over
the frontier in early August.
(AFP, 8/28/14)

2014 Aug 29, Lebanon received
its first emergency shipment of weapons from the US.
(AP, 8/29/14)

2014 Aug 30, A video posted on
social media showed Islamic State militants beheading a Lebanese
soldier who was one of 19 captured by hardline Syrian Islamists when
they seized a Lebanese border town for few days this month. Hours
later, the group posted a second video showing nine other soldiers
begging for their lives.
(Reuters, 8/30/14)
2014 Aug 30, Syria’s Nusra
Front, an al-Qaida affiliate, freed five members of the Lebanese
security forces seized in Arsal earlier this month.
(AP, 8/31/14)

2014 Sep 5, A member of
Lebanon's Hezbollah was killed when an Israeli listening device
exploded in the south of the country.
(AFP, 9/6/14)

2014 Sep 19, Two Lebanese
soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb near Arsal close to the
Syrian border.
(Reuters, 9/19/14)

2014 Sep 20, In Lebanon a
suicide bomber killed a number of people at a Hezbollah checkpoint
near the border with Syria, hours after news that the Syrian branch
of Al-Qaeda had executed a Lebanese soldier. At least 11 members of
Al-Nusra and other Islamist rebel groups were killed overnight in
the bombardment of the Arsal region.
(AFP, 9/20/14)

2014 Sep 25, Lebanese troops
raided a Syrian refugee camp in the restive border town of Arsal,
with the army saying unknown assailants torched several tents but
residents accusing soldiers of setting them ablaze. At least one
person was killed.
(AFP, 9/25/14)(Reuters, 9/25/14)

2014 Sep 30, Iran said it will
supply the Lebanese army with military equipment to fight Muslim
extremist groups.
(SFC, 10/1/14, p.A2)

2014 Oct 1, Lebanese security
sources and state media said Islamist militants have released Kamal
al-Hujairi, Lebanese soldier seized last month from Arsal, a town at
the border with Syria.
(Reuters, 10/1/14)

2014 Oct 5, Gunmen crossed from
Syria into eastern Lebanon and attacked posts of the Shiite movement
Hezbollah, sparking fierce clashes. The Nusra Front attacked several
Hezbollah positions on the Lebanese and Syrian side of the border
simultaneously. At least 8 Hezbollah fighters were reported killed.
(AFP, 10/5/14)(AP, 10/6/14)

2014 Oct 8, France said it will
soon provide weapons and military equipment to the Lebanese army as
part of a $3 billion grant from Saudi Arabia to help it fight
jihadis encroaching into Lebanon from Syria.
(Reuters, 10/8/14)

2014 Oct 23, In Lebanon 4 men
were killed in clashes that erupted when the army raided the
apartment of Syrian refugees in the village of Aasun in the Dinniyeh
region. The army captured a soldier, who recently announced via
YouTube his defection from the army, and arrested Ahmad Miqati, a
man in his 60s accused, along with his fugitive son, of beheading
soldiers in Arsal.
(AFP, 10/23/14)
2014 Oct 23, A Lebanese man who
arrived from West Africa is suspected of having Ebola and was
quarantined in a Beirut hospital, the first such suspected case in
the country.
(AP, 10/23/14)

2014 Oct 25, Lebanese troops
attacked Islamist gunmen holed up in the historic market of the
northern city of Tripoli. A clash in the Akkar region near the
Syrian border left 2 militants dead. Unidentified gunmen had tried
to cut off a main road.
(AFP, 10/25/14)

2014 Oct 26, In Lebanon warrant
officer Fayez al-Ammuri was abducted by gunmen who stormed his home
in Bab al-Tebbaneh. Al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate threatened to kill
Lebanese soldiers it captured in fighting in August unless the army
halts operations against Islamist militants in Lebanon's second city
Tripoli. The army moved tanks and commando forces into Tripoli after
clashes since Oct 24 killed at least 11 soldiers, 8 civilians and 22
militants.
(AFP, 10/26/14)(SFC, 10/27/14, p.A2)(Reuters,
10/30/14)

2014 Oct 29, Lebanese troops
detained 50 people in raids on towns and Syrian refugee camps in the
north of the country.
(AP, 10/30/14)

2014 Nov 4, France and Saudi
Arabia signed an agreement for Paris to provide the Lebanese army
with $3 billion worth of weapons paid for by Riyadh.
(AP, 11/4/14)

2014 Nov 5, Lebanon's
parliament voted to extend its own mandate until 2017 citing
security concerns linked to the civil war in neighboring Syria.
(Reuters, 11/5/14)

2014 Nov 14, Lebanon’s
government handed down life sentences to 4 Islamist prisoners, while
a fifth was sentenced to death in absentia.
(AP, 11/17/14)

2014 Nov 17, In Lebanon
relatives of soldiers held hostage by militants burned tires and
blocked roads in Beirut after Islamic State group extremists
threatened to kill their sons, causing hours of citywide gridlock.
The demonstration began after militants threatened to kill more
hostages unless the government revoked recent sentences handed down
to Islamist prisoners.
(AP, 11/17/14)

2014 Nov 26, Lebanese singer
Sabah (b.1927), whose real name was Jeanette Feghali, died. She came
to prominence in the 1940s as a singer and actress in the Egyptian
movies and was married and divorced at least nine times.
(AP, 11/26/14)

2014 Nov 28, Saeed Akl
(b.1912), Lebanon's leading poet, died. Some of his most famous
poems were sung by Lebanon's top singer, Fayrouz, including the
emotional "Take Me Back to My Country," a song that was played
endlessly on radios during the country's 15-year civil war.
(AP, 11/28/14)

2014 Dec 2, Lebanese security
officials said that Lebanon’s army detained Saja al-Dulaimi, an
alleged wife and daughter of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr
al-Baghdadi, as they crossed from Syria nine days ago. They said
authorities have also detained the wife of Anas Shirkas, senior
Nusra Front leader from Syria. On Dec 3 a statement by Iraq's
Interior Ministry spokesman Saad Maan said Saja al-Dulaimi is not a
wife of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and that she is the sister of a terror
suspect being held in Iraq.
(Reuters, 12/2/14)(AP, 12/3/14)

2014 Dec 3, A Lebanese military
expert was killed and two others were wounded when a bomb they were
about to dismantle near the border with Syria exploded.
(AP, 12/3/14)

2014 Dec 13, Hazem Sherif, a
Syrian from war-torn Aleppo, was declared the winner of this year's
"Arab Idol" singing contest at the grand finale of the grueling
four-month television competition in Beirut.
(AFP, 12/14/14)

2014 Dec 14, In Lebanon scores
of families, friends and supporters of some two dozen Lebanese
police and soldiers held captive by militants continued to rally in
central Beirut, calling for their quick release.
(AP, 12/14/14)

2014 Dec 19, Israel was asked
by the UN General Assembly to compensate Lebanon for $856.4 million
in oil spill damages it caused during its 2006 war with Hezbollah.
The US, Australia, Canada and Israel were among the six states that
voted against the UN text.
(AFP, 12/20/14)

2015 Dec 29, Lebanon’s Labor
Ministry said they received a proposal from the National Federation
of Labor Unions to form a syndicate of migrant workers, mostly from
Ethiopia, Sri Lanka and the Philippines, who have fallen victim to
unpaid wages, forced labor, physical and sexual abuse.
(AP, 1/2/15)

2014 Jan 1, Former Lebanese PM
Omar Karami (b.1934) died after suffering from an undisclosed
illness. Karami served two terms, 1990-1992 and 2004-2005.
(AP, 1/1/15)

2015 Jan 5, Lebanon began
imposing unprecedented restrictions on the entry of Syrians, as it
struggled to cope with well over a million refugees feeling the
civil war next door.
(AP, 1/5/15)

2015 Jan 23, Lebanese army
helicopter gunships and artillery pounded positions of Syria-based
militants after they attacked troops on the outskirts of the
northeastern village of Ras Baalbek. A daylong battle killed 8
soldiers.
(AP, 1/23/15)(AP, 1/24/15)

2015 Feb 8, The United States
delivered more than $25 million worth of military aid including
heavy artillery to the Lebanese army to help it fight jihadist
groups which have repeatedly battled with security forces near the
Syrian border.
(Reuters, 2/8/15)

2015 Feb 17, Syrian government
forces backed by Lebanese militant Hezbollah fighters captured
several villages near the northern city of Aleppo in lightning
advances.
(AP, 2/17/15)

2015 Feb, Lebanon’s national
debt stood at 211% of GDP and was rising
(Econ., 2/28/15, p.41)

2015 Apr 7, In Lebanon 3
unidentified militants were killed in clashes with government
soldiers who launched an operation near the Syrian border to retake
control of a hilltop.
(Reuters, 4/7/15)

2015 Apr 20, Lebanon received
the first installment of $3 billion worth of French weapons paid for
by Saudi Arabia, part of a four-year plan to help arm Beirut in its
battle against jihadi groups.
(AP, 4/20/15)

2015 May 5, In eastern Lebanon
Hezbollah fighters and gunmen from al Qaeda's Syria wing Nusra Front
clashed near the border with Syria. Hezbollah fighters captured a
Syrian village near the border with Lebanon.
(Reuters, 5/5/15)(AP, 5/5/15)

2015 May 6, Lebanese Hezbollah
militants attacked a gathering of leaders of Syria's Nusra Front and
other insurgents in an area near Lebanon's eastern border with
Syria, killing 3 of them.
(Reuters, 5/6/15)

2015 May 10, The Lebanese
Shi'ite group Hezbollah said it had killed over 20 fighters from
Syria's al Qaeda wing and destroyed several hideouts and training
camps the fighters had set up to launch attacks in Lebanon across
the rugged border with Syria.
(Reuters, 5/10/15)

2015 May 27, Lebanon's
Hezbollah said it has struck a group of al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front
militants near the border with Syria with the help of a drone for
the first time.
(AP, 5/27/15)
2015 May 27, Saudi Arabia said
it is sanctioning two senior members of Hezbollah, Khalil Yusif Harb
and Muhammad Qabalan, accusing them of leading terrorist operations
in the Middle East.
(AP, 5/27/15)

2015 Jun 1, In Lebanon at least
6 people were killed when dozens of tents at a Syrian refugee camp
in the Bekaa Valley caught fire.
(Reuters, 6/1/15)